Silence, Schemes, and Potentially Shattered Dreams
by aspiringtoeloquence
Summary: Sometimes beautiful things break. The question is can two - perhaps stubborn - people find their way back to each other without a little help?
1. Chapter 1

_[A/N: This is the (not exactly long anticipated) sequel to _**Scribbles, Spies, and Little White Lies**_, in that it takes place ten years after the events of that story. If you haven't read that, some _very_ minor plot points in this may confuse you, but it isn't insurmountable. Basically, Kurt and Blaine got together with Kurt while he was still at McKinley, but they both graduated from Dalton. Wes and David take complete credit for getting them together, because they came up with a nefarious scheme._

_This is rated T, but I'm going to warn that the characters use what could be considered mature language. It is infrequent, but it does occur, so if that offends you then... there you have it._

_This is different to its prequel both in tone (very, very different) and in the fact that it is, as of this moment, completely written. This fact, in addition to this story's existence as more than a few pages languishing on my hard drive, is due to the encouragement of my fabulous beta for this story, Kat (psychopiratess). She also deserves credit for suggesting a song that became central to a scene that appears later in the story. But more on that later._

_Additional eternal thanks goes to Ali (of-a-crescendo), whose "serious-business" notes vastly improved both the flow of the story and my grasp on it._

_There will be songs/lyrics used, and I highly recommend that once one comes up you listen to it - not only because the song is emotionally relevant (often to the plot), but it is a major part of it. That is, of course, your choice. I will be uploading a link to the playlist for this story to my profile once it becomes relevant._

_Apologies for the lengthly introduction - I hope you enjoy this story, as it is one of the more emotional pieces I think I've written on here, and I hope you'll let me know what you think._

_Finally - bear with them, dear readers. I think they're worth it.]_

* * *

><p>Blaine threw the tea-towel over his shoulder, tasted a little of the sauce off the end of the spoon he was holding, and added more tomato and basil to the simmering pan. He was chatting over his shoulder casually as he did so. "And how is Amanda doing?"<p>

The voice came from the laptop on the dining room table.

"Amanda was, like, a month ago, man," Wes complained from Seattle, "for about four seconds. She was a little clingy."

A dry voice interrupted him from Chicago. "Wes, expecting to see you more than once is _not _clingy."

"Shut up, David."

"You shut up."

Blaine rolled his eyes as he stirred the pasta and then wiped his damp hands on his jeans. "Guys, stop it. Wes, I'm sorry, we haven't talked in a while so I don't know the name of the girl _du jour_."

"Did he just speak French, David?"

"I think he spoke French."

"Clearly New York City has changed you, Blaine."

"I almost don't recognize you anymore."

"You can't see me, geniuses."

"That's what makes it so sad."

"Wes, just tell me about the new girlfriend."

"Her name is Autumn."

"Hey! Sticking with the same letter of the alphabet. For you that's almost commitment."

"David, be nice." How was it they were all in their mid-twenties and Blaine still felt like the parent? He grabbed cutlery from a drawer and put it out. Then he flopped into a dining room chair and rested his elbows on the table.

"Yes, Mom."

"So, Blaine, what's changed with you in the last month? Lawyery-stuff funner than ever?"

Blaine shrugged, and then realized they couldn't see him. "It's fine."

"How about Kurt? I don't hear him. Can we say hi?"

_Damn, _thought Blaine. _That was fast_. _I'm gonna have to tell them. They're gonna freak th_-

"Kuuuurt! We miss yoooou! Don't tell Blaine, but -"

"Hi Kuuuurt! It's David! I really think that -"

"He's not here," Blaine interrupted.

"Well, tell him we say hi. I left him a voicemail last week. And I'm hurt he hasn't texted me."

"Tell him I say hi more."

"Tell him I think of him-"

"I'm not telling him anything." Blaine decided that it would be best to give it to them straight. He took a deep breath and said the words he didn't think he'd ever get used to, or want to, for that matter. "We broke up."

There was stunned silence for so long that Blaine thought they might have lost the connection. Then:

"Bullshit."

He put his head in his hands tiredly. "Wes -"

All the humor was gone from the voice. "No. I'm calling bullshit. Bull. Shit. Hamilton. When did this happen?"

"Three weeks ago." Two weeks, three days, twenty one hours and fifteen minutes. But who was counting?

"Is this one of those stupid things where you told him his hair looked weird, or he said he didn't like The Little Mermaid? Because man, I'm telling you -"

"Wes, stop. It wasn't like that. We had a fight. We decided it was over. We broke up. He's gone... it happens." If he said it enough maybe he'd believe it.

David interjected. "In fairness, Blaine, this is kind of big. I mean, you guys've been together for what, ten years?"

Nine years, 11 months, twenty three days. That's what it would be today. But who was counting?

"Listen, guys, I really don't want to talk about this. Keep it to yourselves, though, 'cause we're not telling people until we work it– our families... not until everything's been finalized...with the apartment and stuff. You two and Mercedes are the only people that know."

"Of course. But, dude," David said reasonably, "this is... I mean... this is a big deal. Are you sure you're okay?"

Blaine took a deep breath, pulled his bare feet onto the chair with him and hugged his knees, letting his chin rest on the black denim. Then he opened his mouth and reassured his friends with one of the biggest lies he'd ever told.

"I'm fine. We both just knew it was time." He closed his eyes to will emotion back in, forcing his voice to stay level. "It's for the best, really."

He realized the pasta was ready and drained it. Then he put some on his plate, added sauce, and turned back to the table, listening to David, who had mercifully changed the subject and was talking about his weird doctoral advisor. He stopped dead when he saw the table.

He'd done it again. He'd set the table for two without even thinking about it.

It hurt to look at it. I mean, it wasn't really that big a deal, really... but ten year habits die hard. And Blaine was beginning to realize how much of his life revolved around those habits. Sleeping (or not), eating, work, texting, studying cases, talking on the phone, going home to visit... they were all parts of his life that had been shared for a long time now. It was things like that – setting the table, making two cups of coffee, cooking enough pasta for two, picking up his phone out of habit to text Kurt and tell him he was running late, or laugh about that girl who worked in accounts, the one who always wore miniskirts, even when it was freezing outside. Those were the things that hurt. He'd be typing out the text, entering the number, pouring the coffee when he remembered. Salt on the wound.

And as he ate a forkful of pasta that was actually delicious, but tasted to him like sand, and tried to cheerfully respond to whatever Wes was saying, Blaine wished that he hadn't been so happy in a relationship for almost a decade. It made being suddenly alone suck a lot more.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes of random unrelated chatter later, and having exchanged goodbyes and promises to talk again soon, Wes snapped his laptop closed. He grabbed his pillow, the nearest object to him, and tossed it at the wall angrily. "Dammit!"<p>

He reached for his cell phone and speed dialed two – David. Annoyed to get sent to voicemail, he almost didn't notice that his call waiting was beeping. David was calling him. Great minds still thought alike.

"What. The. Fuck." Wes collapsed back onto his couch.

"I know."

"We have to find out what happened. This is -"

"I know. But are you sure we should -"

"David. They're our best friends. They've been in love for over a decade. They've been broken up for three weeks and haven't told anyone. Something is going on, and I suspect it's stubbornness."

There was a sigh. "Fine. I'll call Kurt, you call Blaine."

"Um – I think you'd better take Blaine. He always seems a bit suspicious of my motives."

"I wonder why."

Wes smiled at that. "Shut up. Go find out what happened. I'll call Kurt, then call you back."

"Wes," David warned, "don't make it about you."

Wes scoffed. "When have you ever known me to do that?"

* * *

><p>Kurt was still at work at 8pm on a Thursday night. That wasn't unusual for him, but usually if he worked late, especially if it was on or near a weekend, Blaine would sweep in to save him, date in hand. There would be chinese food, and wine and they'd chat and eat while Kurt sketched. Some of his best memories of their relationship came from them sitting on his desk at 2am, giggling and making out like they were in high school again.<p>

He looked at the limp salad sitting on his desk and threw it into the trash with disgust.

He should probably go home. Home to Mercedes', he reminded himself. And then he felt empty again.

He liked staying with Mercedes. He loved her, after all. But the problem with having a tight-knit group of friends was that all of their homes held memories of their relationships – especially since the relationship he was trying not to think about had been going for just under a decade. Every room of every building in his life was full of Blaine. They were in Mercedes' living room toasting the new year, or tipsily making out like teenagers in the elevator of Kurt's work building after the Christmas party last December, or walking to their favorite pizza place, laughing (hand in hand) at whatever email they had gotten that day from Brittany, or Quinn, or Rachel. They were everywhere, and Kurt concluded, not for the first time, that New York – to him, at least - was forever going to be _their _city. A monument to an almost 10 year relationship that had ended with such speed, such finality, it was like a bad first date. It was just...over. Nothing but silence, without even the promise of a phone call.

Ironically, his phone rang then and he looked at the caller ID. Wes.

He didn't know about them yet. No one did, except Mercedes. Blaine had wanted to wait until after they'd both cooled down, and they'd worked out how to talk to one another rationally...tell their families and friends. Kurt sighed. He really didn't want to have a conversation pretending that everything was fine. He should really let it go to voicemail.

He picked up anyway.

"Wes?"

"Were you ever going to tell us, Hummel, or were you going to just let David and I keep putting money away to buy you that unicorn for your wedding?" Wes' voice wasn't unkind, and there was that characteristic edge of humor, but it was definitely hurt.

"I'm sorry, Wes, I -"

"Hang on a second Kurt, I'm not done. You're going to have to indulge me for a moment. I did, after all, just find out that two of my best friends, who have been sickeningly in love with each other for over a decade, by the way, apparently decided that they didn't really like each other that much after all. And having been there to witness large swathes of that decade, let me tell you, Kurt, that it wasn't always easy. Do you have any idea how many times I heard the song Teenage Dream? My god, I had nightmares for months that Katy Perry was coming after me with a giant lollipop shaped like a hammer. And there was the strumming. My god, the strumming. So David and I risked our lives to get you two together. And it worked – even though you didn't tell me about it for a month, which was ridiculously mean. And then there was the making out! The only thing worse than having a roommate bring people back to your room all the time is having your two best friends living together next door. I saw WAY MORE than I needed to see, believe me." He didn't pause but his voice softened. "But I didn't mind – no one at Dalton did. Because it was so blindingly obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that you two were the freakin' love story. The genuine article. I mean, the two of you were the goddamn Romeo and Juliet of Dalton Academy."

"They both died," Kurt pointed out reasonably, trying to focus on the minute details of Wes' speech rather than the sentiment, so that he didn't cry.

"Maybe, but they were fucking epic first."

There was a pause.

Wes added, "And neither of them ever considered the idea that they should be apart."

"Let it go, please, Wes."

"What happened?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"We're talking about Blaine. I believe the words 'Wes, this is none of your business and if you start nosing around I will end you' featured heavily in the subtext of the brief conversation."

"Maybe you should listen."

"Because that's _always _been my specialty."

"Wes, I have to go."

"Why, got a hot date?"

Even though the quip was without any malice, Kurt felt his temper escape his iron grip of control. He went a little bit insane. "Is that why you called, Wesley? To see if I was sleeping with someone new? Were you really concerned about me, or did you just want to tell me how the end of the best thing that ever happened to me is inconvenient in the scheme of your grand plan? Do you want to hear that I've moved on? Fine. Assume I'm sleeping with every guy in New York. And – why not? - some girls too. Make sure to tell Blaine that I'm whoring it up – maybe that'll make it easier for us both to move on. But what am I saying? – I'm being so selfish about the end of my ten year relationship. What can _I _do for _you_, Wes? How can I make this easier for _you_?"

There was a pause.

"I'm sorry," Wes said slowly after a moment. "That was thoughtless of me to say, and I apologize. And I'm sorry if you feel like I'm making this about me. It isn't. I know that. But I love you, and I love Blaine, and...I just... _I don't see how it didn't work out_. There was just... never any way that it wouldn't work out." Those last words had an edge of desperation to them, and Kurt felt like he was the father of a teenage boy trying to understand why his parents were splitting up.

"Yeah, well, it didn't. And that's that."

"I'm sorry. Really, though, do you want to talk about it? Other than to yell at me, I mean."

"Not really."

"You _can _yell at me some more if you want. That usually makes you feel better."

"I'm good," he lied. He took a deep breath and forced a smile in to his voice. "But enough of my drama – how many inches of water is Seattle under right now?"

* * *

><p>"So, where are you guys? Like, has he moved out, or..." David trailed off.<p>

Blaine sighed into the phone again. He seemed to spend a lot of time doing that recently. "He isn't living here. But we haven't talked, so his stuff is all still around. 'Cedes has a key, and she comes by and grabs stuff occasionally. I don't think he's been here, but I probably wouldn't know..." Blaine decided not to mention that he hadn't moved any of Kurt's stuff from where it had been left, and that he'd taken to sleeping in some of his boyf – _ex_-boyfriend's shirts. And it was probably best not to confess that he'd been sleeping on the couch or in the guest room because he couldn't stand to look at their empty bed, or the balcony where -_enough_. There was no need to seem pathetic, after all.

"What happened, man?"

"I – he – it just got bad. And then... we were done."

"You guys have fought before."

"Yes, we had. But not like that. It's too late."

"Why, what the hell did you say?"

"I really don't want to discuss it." He forced the memory of angry, hurtful words from his mind, and made his tone cheerful. "Anyway. Tell me more about that music theory class..."

* * *

><p>"Blaine called," Mercedes mentioned casually as he walked in the front door later that night.<p>

Kurt tried very hard not to care. "Really? I didn't get any missed calls."

Her voice was gentle. "I know. He said... he wasn't sure if you'd want to talk to him. So he called me."

"Oh." There was a lot of weight behind that word.

"He wanted me to warn you that Wes and David found out, so you'll probably be hearing from them pretty soon. He told me to tell you to forgive them, 'for they know not what they do'."

Kurt smiled despite himself, and Mercedes saw his eyes come alive for the first time in weeks. Then... the spark was gone. "Thanks. Wes called me already."

Mercedes couldn't stand the look on her best friend's face. "Oh, boo." She pulled him down next to her on the couch and gave him a big hug. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't that bad. I shouted at him and then we chatted for a bit. I kind of miss him."

"Blaine?"

"No...Wes." A pause. "I do miss _him_, though." He unconsciously put a hand to his chest. "It just... it hurts, you know?"

"I know, baby. Why don't you call him, and you two can talk?"

"I can't. It was too – we're done. I can't – it's too much."

Mercedes saw the panic on his face at the thought, a mirror of the look that had appeared on Blaine's when she'd asked him the same question, and wondered for the thousandth time what they could have said to each other to make them both this unwilling to talk. She put on a huge, fake smile.

"Then there is only one question left to ask."

"What?"

"Rocky road, or mint chocolate chip?"

* * *

><p>Blaine sat in front of the baby grand piano late the next night with a pencil between his teeth. He hadn't been writing as much music as he used to, and he'd missed it. He missed singing, writing, and knowing when the perfect combination of notes to capture his mood had finally been found. A couple of days after Kurt had left – those words still sounded foreign in his mind, but he told himself he'd have to get used to them – he'd pulled out his old sheet music and lyric scribbles, years worth of ideas and chords in folders and notebooks. They were scattered all over the coffee table and piano, and he'd been sorting through them to find something he liked. Shortly into the process he'd come across the lyrics to a song that had made every muscle in his body tense up – it was one he'd written after a huge fight that he and Kurt had had during sophomore year of college.<p>

It had really looked like the end for them for a short while– there had been screaming, and name calling, and they'd each said some truly terrible things. It was, until a few weeks ago, the worst fight that Blaine had ever had with anyone, and he was suddenly reminded of the way that long ago fight had started, with a simple comment about studying late, and a harmless quip back along the lines of 'If I were going to cheat on you, Blaine, I'd be a lot more subtle than that'.

He'd been kidding, and they'd both known it. But that hadn't stopped Blaine from pointing out that the way Kurt had flirted with the guy in his Literature class when they ran into him at the library last week hadn't exactly been subtle.

So Kurt had made it clear that Blaine was one to talk, because the way _he_ flirted with the TA in his Criminology class was practically obscene.

Blaine had told him he was being ridiculous, and anyway, Michael was straight.

Kurt had yelled (they were at _that _point) that it was interesting he made that distinction, as it shouldn't matter whether _Michael _was straight or not if they were really in a relationship.

Blaine had (rather idiotically) waspishly responded that the term relationship was clearly subjective, as having a screaming match in the middle of Central Park was not his idea of a healthy date, and anyway, Kurt had spent the last week very determinedly telling him that he thought he should switch majors, without actually listening anything he said on the subject, which was also not a mark of an especially robust partnership.

Kurt had told Blaine that he was one to talk, he'd let himself get talked into downgrading his major from international law to something so ridiculously unimportant, that he actually hated, and if he was going to be such a hypocrite and coward than maybe it was time for them to stop pretending about a lot of other things too. Also, that guy at the restaurant the previous week _had_ asked him for his number, and Kurt was beginning to seriously regret not giving it to him.

It was at that point that it had gotten ugly.

Twenty minutes later Blaine had fumed his way back to his dorm room and picked up his guitar, furious with Kurt and with anyone who had ever told them they would be, or were, a great couple. He'd snapped several strings that night, as he viciously plucked, trying to find the right chords to convey unadulterated rage. Blaine had been convinced, in the way that teenagers often are, that it was the end of the world, and he would never be happy again. Love's young dream was done. The end. Finito. All he had was his guitar. And that was fine. That was all he needed.

And then Kurt had shown up at his dorm room door at midnight. With an olive branch. An actual, real, goddamn olive branch. In New York. In the middle of winter. And the song had been left unfinished, tossed aside as all of the anger had seeped from his body in an instant.

Blaine looked at the lyrics his angry teenage self had scribbled and decided that, while they needed some work, he was definitely in a place where he could connect with them. He played a few notes experimentally on the piano, shook his head, and went to go find his guitar.

Sometimes you couldn't mess with the classics. And angsty teenage songs on a beat-up acoustic guitar were a classic.

An hour later the song was done, and the finished lyrics were lying on the coffee table, along with three weeks worth of newspapers and some fashion magazines that Blaine couldn't quite bring himself to look at just yet. He took a sip of the coffee he'd made himself and stared at the lyrics. He'd forgotten how cathartic writing could be.

He was interrupted in his thoughts by an insistent knock at the door. Blaine opened it and stared out in confusion.

"Are you going to stand there looking at me like I'm the ghost of hairgels past or are you going to let us in?" Wes demanded this with a grin, shoving both his and David's suitcases into Blaine's limp, astounded arms.

* * *

><p><em>24 hours earlier:<em>

_"What are you doing tomorrow?"_

_David frowned at his phone. "Hello to you too, Wes. We really need to work on your mann-"_

_"Hello. What are you doing tomorrow?_

_"I have class in the evening. Why?"_

_"Tell them you won't be there."_

_"...No. I mean... what are you talking about?"_

_"Drastic action must be taken, my friend."_

_David did not like the way this was going at all. "Uh, Wes, I really don't think that whatever you are -"_

_"Yeah, I get it. You think I'm wrong. Thing is, I don't care. I'm getting into Chicago tomorrow at 5:30. Then you and I are getting on a flight to JFK."_

_David attempted to be reasonable. It was doomed from the start. "Listen, Wes, I can't just uproot my life for however long to run to New York and – what are we doing in New York, anyway?"_

_"We're going to fix this. Because I just talked to Mercedes and it is clear that our dear, darling friends need our help. And so you are going to go back to your apartment, pack enough clothing for a week, and tell school you are going to help your sick friend. As a medical professional – well, almost – it is my opinion that Blaine sounded a little ill on the phone. I'm worried. It is necessary for you to meet me at 5:30 at the airport, and not complain the entire way to New York that I am insane. It worked last time we did this, didn't it?"_

_"You mean the time when you tried to convince Blaine that Kurt wanted to go to the -"_

_"No, not that."_

_"Good, because as I recall, that ended with you almost getting arrested, and Blaine swearing he'd leave you there to rot."_

_"Jesus, everyone's a fucking encyclopedia of Wes' slight errors in judgment. But have you forgotten that it was us (mostly me) who got them together in the first place? At great personal risk, I might add."_

_"And they were so mad at you they didn't tell you it worked."_

_There was a pause. "Well, yeah, but I worked it out eventually."_

_"Once Austin told you he'd seen them making out in the auditorium."_

_"You know what? That is beside the point. The point is... you talked to Blaine. Does he sound happy?"_

_"Of course not."_

_"Well, Kurt yelled at me and told me he'd lost the best thing that had ever happened to him. And Mercedes is really upset. So I'm guessing he isn't doing so well either."_

_"That's to be expected. They just went through a terrible break up of a long relationship."_

_Wes was getting tired of this. "Listen... David. I am not going to drag you to New York against your will -"_

_"And that's an indication that you're growing as a person, I think -"_

_"But I am going to ask you one question, and I want you to think about it before you answer. And if you have your answer and you still don't want to come with me, I'll go by myself. But I'd like you there. He needs us. They need us."_

_"What's the question?"_

_"Do you honestly think that Blaine and Kurt don't belong together?"_

_There was a pregnant pause. Wes crossed his fingers._

_David swore. "I'll see you at 5:30," he muttered before hanging up._

* * *

><p>"Jesus Christ, Hamilton, who'd you have to do to get this place?" Wes whistled as he walked into the living room, taking in the piano and minimalist furniture.<p>

Blaine raised an eyebrow. "Silly me, I've been paying by cheque. I should've researched the alternatives."

The apartment was gorgeous. It wasn't as expensive as it looked, but it was definitely more than a young lawyer (no matter how promising) and a struggling fashion designer would have been able to afford without a generous subsidy from Blaine's trust fund. They'd been living in a tiny apartment in the village until about eight months ago, when Blaine and Kurt had decided (well, Blaine had convinced Kurt) that there was no use in having an untapped supply of money if it couldn't buy them space for a piano and cut down their commute. So they'd moved to Tribeca, enjoying the benefits of more space, better neighbors, and a great chinese restaurant down the street. And then – _enough_. Wes and David were both looking at the sheet music scattered around the room, and Wes had taken a sheet of it and put it on the piano. He played a few notes out experimentally and Blaine stiffened, recognizing the introduction. Luckily, although Wes hadn't noticed, he stopped playing. "I haven't sight-read in ages. This one's old, isn't it?"

Blaine glanced at the title as he crossed to throw the suitcases in the corner, pretending he didn't know exactly which of his songs was sitting there. "Yeah. That's an old one."His and Kurt's song.

Wes waved the sheet around as he talked. "I liked it though. It's good. I assume this" - he gestured to the mess of papers - "means you're still playing...?"

"I hadn't been as much, but... yeah."

"We should totally jam, just like old times. It'd be so fun. What're you looking at, David?"

Blaine turned to see David sitting on the couch, studying a piece of paper intently. He looked at Blaine with interest. "When did you write this?"

"What?" Blaine asked, but he already knew what David had picked up. He'd left it lying there when he went to get the door. He glanced at it, buying time. "Oh, I rewrote most of it recently" - _try just now_ - "but a few years ago? I don't know. Do you guys want a drink?"

Wes brightened at this idea, but David continued to look at Blaine thoughtfully, clearly impressed. "I'd like to hear you play it sometime. It looks good, man. But then again, you were always one hell of a songwriter."

Blaine opened his mouth to respond that the song wasn't finished (lie) so he couldn't play it (lie) but Wes interrupted. "I hate to ruin this bromance moment the two of you have going on, but I'm unbelievably jealous and I heard mention of a drink. So, putting Blaine's undeniable genius aside for a moment, can someone point me in the direction of some glasses and a bottle of scotch?"

* * *

><p>When Wes finally surfaced on Saturday morning, Blaine and David were sitting on the couch with mugs of coffee, discussing the best chord progression for a something if you wanted to convey a something else. Wes hadn't used those terms in a while, so the specifics were kind of white noise to him.<p>

"Is it lunchtime?" he asked David, who was in the middle of a sentence. His friend finished before turning to him with a scowl.

"We really do need to work on your manners. And yes, it is lunchtime."

"Excellent. Where are we going?"

Blaine rolled his eyes. "I do have food, you know."

"Yeah, but we're on vacation! We should live a little. Although if your cooking is still as good as it was -"

"It is, but you raise an interesting question." Blaine was thoughtful. "You're on vacation in the middle of March?"

"David's spring break -"

" -is next month. Why are you here?"

"Trying to get rid of us already?" David deflected with a grin. Wes was so proud.

Blaine looked slightly flustered, and immediately sounded apologetic. "You know that's not – you know I'm glad you guys came. I'm just – it's a little... unexpected. I mean, I tell you that Ku- what happened, and the next night you show up on my doorstep? I just don't want you guys to get... involved. I know it's... different, but I just – please don't try to _do _anything. Don't try to fix it. Please?"

Wes looked injured. "Why, Blaine, can't two best friends just fly across the country on a moment's notice when their other best friend is upset without there being some kind of ulterior motive?"

Blaine narrowed his eyes suspiciously, then seemed to give up and almost smiled. "Fine. Thanks, then, guys. I missed you two. I really did."

David went to hug him, then changed direction and stole the muffin that was sitting in front of his friend on the coffee table. "Good."

"So, lunch?" Wes asked hopefully, eyeing the muffin and coffee lustfully.

"There's a sandwich place that's pretty close. Or pizza. Or we could go uptown if you wanted to -"

"Did I see a chinese place down the street when we were arriving last night? Because fried rice sounds really good right now."

Blaine hesitated. "Yeah, but -"

"Bad food?" David surmised with a frown.

"No, it's good, but..."

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing. It's fine. It's just..." Blaine took a deep breath. " it's just...Kurt and I used to order in from there a lot." His voice got so quiet when he said Kurt's name that both David and Wes thought their hearts might break.

"I don't feel like chinese." Wes announced immediately. "I want pizza. Grease, and cheese -"

"No, guys, it's alright. I'm going to have to go there eventually. We might as well -"

"Pizza," David agreed quickly, ignoring Blaine's interjection entirely, "sounds good. Wes, where did you put my phone charger?"

"Exactly the same place I told you it was last night, if you paid even the slightest bit of attention -"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I must have imagined the way that you-"

Blaine stopped the pair right then. "Guys! Pizza?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Right."

They all went to grab coats, and Blaine yelled from the hall. "And tonight, if you guys want, I can take you to this great bar in the village. There's usually a band playing, and they have really great -" he stopped as he walked back into the living room and saw them exchanging glances. "What is it?"

"It's – er – nothing," David hedged. "It's just... we... um... kinda made plans for dinner already."

Blaine shrugged. "Ok, no problem. We can go another time." He turned towards the front door, then something occurred to him, and he turned back, curious. "Who are you two meeting, though? I mean, how many people to you know in New -" His eyes got really big as he put two and two together - "...Oh."

"We can cancel," Wes offered, uncharacteristically unsure of himself, "if it makes you uncomfortable."

"Mercedes had texted me yesterday," David explained, "when she found out that we knew, and so when we decided to come -"

"But if it makes you feel awkward -"

Blaine forced another smile. He was doing _that _a lot more too. "Don't be stupid. You guys are friends with – it's fine." Blaine thought that if he ever used the word fine again, it would be too soon. "Tell 'Cedes I say hi. And tell – give K- give them my best." He turned away to grab his scarf and Wes raised an eyebrow at David, who shrugged. "Let's go get lunch."

* * *

><p>Walking back to Blaine and – no, <em>just Blaine's <em>now_- _apartment after dinner that night, David and Wes had a conference of sorts. Seeing their friends apart had been tough, especially since they were both so anxious to avoid the subjects of both the break-up (most of all the reasons behind it), and the fact of the relationship in the first place.

When they'd first seen Blaine they'd been impressed by the way he seemed to be holding it together. Aside from the apartment being unusually messy for him, all appeared well, outwardly at least. And then they'd noticed that whenever Kurt's name came up in conversation (as it was bound to when so many of their shared memories contained the two as a pair), it seemed to take physical effort for him to either hear, or get the syllable out – as though the wound was still too raw to even say it. The first time, over a drink the night they'd arrived, David had unthinkingly slipped, and mentioned a duet the two had done shortly after Kurt transferred, before they were even a couple. It had been flirty, joyful, and had left every single person watching in awe of the electricity that came from their sexual tension. They'd felt like they were watching something private and intimate.

Blaine had looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach – but only for an instant, and then his face was back to smiling and laughing again. He'd always been a good actor. And while after that both Wes and David had consciously tried not to ambush him with memories from their time together... they'd been together for ten years. It hadn't been _Blaine's _life and _Kurt's _life for a long time. It had been _theirs_. In _their _city. With their memories. It was difficult to catch up with your best friend when ten years of his life was suddenly off-limits.

It was even tougher with Kurt at dinner, and while Mercedes (who they loved) was really good at coaxing laughter out of their friend, there was a perpetual air of sadness to him that they recognized. He would try to mention Blaine casually, but the effort seemed to cost him. Whatever differences Blaine and Kurt had, they were clearly both suffering.

"The silence is the problem." Wes asserted, adjusting his scarf. "If they talked, then everything would be fine."

"But they won't. They're still too mad at each other for whatever it was they said."

"Are they? Or are they mad for whatever the other made _them _say?"

"I hate it when you say things that make no sense, but I actually kind of understand. It makes me feel like we're equally crazy."

"What could they have said that was that bad?"

"I don't know. But Blaine seems to think it's unforgivable."

"Yeah, well, Blaine's an idiot."

"He's many things, but an idiot isn't one of them."

Wes relented. "Maybe not. But that doesn't change the fact that this stubbornness is absurd."

David hesitated. "Are you sure we should be interfering? I mean, it was a good idea to visit, but... what if we're wrong? What if the right thing to do is to let them suffer and move on?"

Wes opened his mouth to make a flippant retort, then shrugged. "I don't think that's the case. But if something happens that makes me believe that's true... then I guess we'll just have to deal."

"Really?" David's voice was doubtful.

Wes looked a little hurt. He stopped walking and turned to his friend.

"I'm not a monster, David. I'm not trying to get Kurt and Blaine back together for the sake of it. I think they belong together. Always have. But they're also stubborn as hell. It took them an absurdly long time to get together, so we had to help. And now for some reason they're broken - so broken that neither of them want to talk about it. I can't force them to get back together – and, before you ask, no, I wouldn't if I could. But they need to see each other and they need to talk. Because they'd never forgive themselves if the last words they spoke to each other were the ones they flung out in anger as one of them walked out the door."

Wes wasn't nakedly sincere that often, so when he was it always took David a moment to adjust. He looked kind of impressed. "So...they need to see each other. How're we gonna make that happen?"

Wes' trademark grin returned. "Well. I do happen to have a few brilliant ideas..."

* * *

><p>The next night they went to the bar Blaine had suggested, and played a drinking game where Wes had to take a shot every time he commented on how hot a girl was. Mostly-sober Blaine, who only had to drink whenever he said he was "fine" (apparently they'd picked up on that too), and David, who had to drink whenever he called Wes an idiot, were enjoying the game immensely.<p>

After about an hour Blaine had been tapped on the shoulder and a guy, the guitarist for the band that had been playing, had offered to buy him a drink, saying he'd seen him around there before. Wes and David tried very hard not to stare daggers, knowing deep down that they'd both back off of plan help-Kurt-and-Blaine-help-themselves (Wes was still working on the codename) if it looked like Blaine really was looking to move on (even though to their minds it was a bit soon – but then, ever would be a bit soon),

After a long pause, Blaine smiled and shook his head.

"I'm good. But thanks, really. Your guys' set was great." The guy (who was admittedly pretty good looking) nodded and left, and Wes and David glanced at each other, letting out small simultaneous sighs of relief.

"That was really bad manners," Wes complained after a moment. Blaine raised an eyebrow at him, and he explained. "You could have been here with one of us!"

Blaine snorted. "He probably thought the two of you were a couple."

"I thought gay guys were supposed to have a radar for that kind of thing?"

Blaine looked pointedly at Wes' arm, which was bracing his body (to avoid falling off the barstool as he leaned to talk to Blaine) by gripping David's bicep. Wes shrugged.

"If they don't understand our bromance that's their problem. David and I are special. But I still think he shouldn't have hit on you."

Blaine looked uncomfortable, and started back up the conversation they had been having earlier, the light in his eyes just as dim as before, and his two friends silently promised themselves that they'd do whatever it took to make that smile genuine again.

* * *

><p>It took Wes and David four days to convince Blaine that his need to sing in public with his two oldest friends was something that could not be denied. Wes began the assault on Monday morning, when his friend was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, reading the New York Times. Blaine objected that he hadn't sung in public for ages, he didn't really like karaoke, and he wasn't really in the mood. Wes had replied that he had flown from Seattle to make sure Blaine had some fun, and he was not only going to go, he was going to like it. His friend was less than impressed with this argument, and went off to work insisting that he'd rather do something else. He suggested bathing in battery acid.<p>

Tuesday's assault was more of the same, except this time Wes tried to play the I've-put-up-with-a-lot-of-crap-from-you-over-the-years-and-I-think-you-owe-me-this card. This only resulted in a half hour list of all the crap Blaine had had to deal with over the last eleven years. So, that didn't go entirely to plan.

On Wednesday Wes and David spent the day (while Blaine was working) scouting New York for ideas. Well, Wes went to scout. David went to supervise. When they returned at around 7, they let themselves in and immediately picked out the music floating down the hallway. Wes took a step forward, but David stopped him, recognizing the chords as those he'd asked Blaine about on their first night in New York. They listened to their friend sing the last few wrenching words of his song, and David looked at Wes with determination. "Kurt," he said, "needs to hear _that_. _That, _if nothing else, will get them talking."

"A goal..." Wes mused. "Challenge accepted."

* * *

><p>Early on Thursday, at least as far as Wes was concerned, his phone rang. He reached groggily over for the phone from his sprawled position on the couch in the master bedroom (David had won the coin toss to see who got the bed. But Wes was pretty sure he had cheated). The one thing that neither Blaine nor David could ever fault him on was that when he said "Call me if you need me, my phone is always on," he really meant it. His phone <em>was <em>always on, and he would always pick up. But that didn't mean he had to be nice about it.

"Fuck off, 'Cedes, it's early..." he mumbled incoherently, having glanced at the caller ID.

"Boy, as I need your help I am going to generously ignore that."

"Whassat? Whatcha need?"

"Kurt is... not doing well."

He was awake immediately.

"What do you mean?" He demanded. On the other side of the room David stirred and put a pillow over his head. "What does 'not doing well' mean?"

"Oh, no – not, you know, I mean, not suicidal or anything... he's just – he... last night we were watching TV, and this movie channel was playing Christmas movies in March, for some reason I don't entirely understand. I mean, it's nine months until December. Where do they get off -"

"'Cedes. Focus." Wes was fairly certain he knew where this was going. Kurt and Blaine had always been slightly Christmas obsessed, and it all stemmed from...

"They sang _Baby, It's Cold Outside_. In the movie, I mean. And when he heard them... Wes, I thought he might just die right there. He got so pale and quiet, and then he went to bed, and -"

"It was one of their songs, Mercedes. They sang it together, before they were dating. It was their version of foreplay."

" I know... but they sang together a lot, Wes. Ten years. That's a lot of music. It's not going to be possible for them to avoid hearing every song they ever heard or sang."

"They won't have to, remember? I have a plan!"

"Oh, not this again."

"I'm telling you Mercedes, I -"

"Wesley, you know I love you, but you are an interfering little creep sometimes – and not in the good way."

"That was in no way logical."

"Shut up."

"Yes, m'am."

"I knew I should have called David. Anyway, I love my boys, you know I do. Blaine's a wonderful guy, and a good friend, and I love him...but more importantly, he's always completely adored my best friend to the point of insane self-sacrifice. And I don't know what exactly happened to make them both think that they could never forgive each other, but I need to know something definitively before I decide what to do. And I want you to answer this question in one word. One word, Wes, or I won't help you with your ridiculous harebrained scheme. And despite my better judgement, I do want to help you, because I know you genuinely do mean well, despite all appearances to the contrary. So, in one word, Wes: As one of his oldest friends, do you think Blaine is still in love with Kurt – and I mean in the I-wish-he'd-never-left-sense, not the I-kind-of-miss-a-warm-body sense?"

"Oh, for -"

"One word."

" Th -Yes."

"Alright. So they need to at least talk. Now, genius, I know that you're only here 'til Saturday, so meet me for lunch today – bring the intelligent twin too – and we'll chat. And by chat, I mean I will tell you how absurd your plan is, and then David and I will come up with a better one. I'll text you the address."

Wes blinked into his phone as it disconnected, and then threw a pillow at David, who groaned.

"Get up, idiot. We have plotting to do."

* * *

><p>That night David started his own attack. "You know, we're leaving on Saturday."<p>

Blaine didn't look up from the book he was reading. "I know. I'm taking you to the airport."

"I think we should go out tomorrow night."

"Sure. We can go to that place on -"

"I was thinking we should go to karaoke."

Blaine's eyes narrowed. "Wes?"

"No, _I _think we should go. It will be good for you – it'll be fun. Like old times. And I heard about this place earlier that has kind of an open mic night/karaoke thing, so you could play something of yours, and then we could sing something else..." he saw Blaine's skeptical face and cursed Wes' idiocy for about the ten millionth time in his life. This would be so much easier if Wes possessed more than the tact of a cabbage. "I just thought it might be fun – and it would help get Wes' confidence back for... you know... singing in public."

Blaine fixed him with a look that clearly said he wasn't buying it. "Wes has confidence issues? We are talking about the same person, right? Since when?"

David improvised. "Well, I think all that school and – you, know... partying and stuff has kind of been a cover for... missing the Dalton atmosphere. You know, brotherhood and all that. I mean, he had us, and the Warblers...and..." -he made a mental note to tell Wes of his psychological issues - "he told me on the way here that he really misses that. It upsets him a lot"

Blaine still looked entirely unconvinced. "He said that?"

David crossed his fingers behind his back. "Yep. So, how 'bout it? You can play me that new song!"

Blaine studied his face for signs of deception for a moment, then seemed to reach a decision. "You mean the old one. And no, it... isn't ready. But I'll go. And I'll play something."

David grinned. "Fantastic. It'll be great! And I still think you should play that song. Now, what should the three of us sing? All those in favor of Backstreet Boys?"

* * *

><p>Kurt did not want to go out. He did not really want to go out ever, but he especially did not want to go out anytime soon. He did not want to dance, he did not want to smile... what he wanted to do was wallow. He wanted to watch lifetime movies and complain to Mercedes that the hero was unrealistic, because people in real life never did things like save someone's great-great-great grandmother's house from demolition by using his money (earned being a misunderstood CEO) to buy the land, so they could live there happily forever. And people in real life never rented out entire ice rinks to – okay, maybe that was within the realm of possibility. But nobody looked that good in the snow. And the snow in New York never looked that white or perfect. So there.<p>

He knew he was being cynical and annoying, but he was finding it difficult to care.

You see, he'd had one of those horrible, perfect dreams the previous night where you wake up, and you would swear blind that it was real. He'd been with Blaine, and they'd been in high school, on Blaine's bed, giggling and kissing, and then they'd been in their apartment, watching something on TV, laughing at the way someone dressed, arguing about who was the better actor in whatever show they were watching, holding hands, and then leaning in for a quick peck on the cheek. Then they were in their bed, late at night, and Blaine's tongue was tracing lazy, delicious circles on his skin, and his hands were buried in his boyfriend's hair, and there was nothing better than this - _oh god, just a little bit more _– nothing hotter, nothing more special, nothing more_right_. But it wasn't just sex, because by now they knew each others bodies better than they knew their own – where to touch, where to kiss, and exactly where and what would drive him crazy. And so they went a little crazy together.

And the room, the sheets, they smelled like them – like great sex, cologne, the spicy gum that Kurt was obsessed with, and the mint of Blaine's shower gel. And then they were waking up next to each other on a sunny morning, like the first time, but so much better because this was all theirs, this room, this morning, these lives. Every kiss was a thousand times better because it would never be the last, there was always more time, more coffee, more laughter, more of _them_...

And then Kurt had woken up. And he was alone, in a bed that wasn't theirs, in an apartment that wasn't home.

And he actually felt his heart break in two all over again.

* * *

><p>The club was dimly lit, but it was, Blaine had to admit, one of the classier karaoke places he'd seen in the city. It was definitely not a dive bar, but it had the kind of casual atmosphere you couldn't really find anywhere with a wine list. There was a piano on the stage (clearly there was the option of live accompaniment) and a woman - who looked like she was probably a music graduate student somewhere in the city - was tinkering with the keys while she waited. Wes bounded over to a booth near the stage, where they'd have a perfect view of proceedings. He waved his friends over, and they settled down to look at the small crowd gathered. There looked to be about twenty other people spread out across the room – ten of those women were in a group, clearly on the prowl. They'd started eyeing the trio as soon as they came in sight, and Blaine realized quickly that it was going to be a long night. When David walked over to the emcee to give their names and the songs they'd chosen, and one of the women slapped him on the ass, Blaine amended his previous thought. It was going to be a <em>really<em> long night.

The first couple of songs did nothing to dissuade him of this notion.

Two of the slightly drunk women who had been ogling David stumbled through a rendition of 'Man, I feel Like a Woman' that made Blaine and Wes each order a drink. This was quickly followed by a shy girl, obviously forced to sing by her friend, who whispered the words to 'I Will Survive' like she was trying to convince herself more than them. Wes was up next though, and had become determined to 'bring the party up in here'. He took to the stage and with an energy Blaine had never quite been able to understand the source of, led the room in a rousing rendition of_We Will Rock You_, and Blaine leaned over to David mid-chorus with a sarcastic smile.

"Oh, yeah. The guy is clearly anxious in front of a crowd."

David shrugged and continued singing along. Blaine sipped his drink, smiling despite himself. He really loved his friends, and he did appreciate their obvious attempts to cheer him up.

Wes got a standing ovation, naturally, and bowed until the next singer pushed him offstage. He bounded back over to the table and clapped Blaine on the shoulder.

"Well, I was fantastic. You're up soon, friend! Got your first song ready?"

"You should know, you're the one who insisted I do it when I casually mentioned the possibility."

"C'mon. It's great. It's so... you."

"I'm not sure how to feel about that."

"You know what I mean – it's totally a look-at-me-I'm-deep song you'd write for -" Wes stopped. "It's, um, a song you'd write."

"Uh-huh."

He really wasn't sure about the song. It wasn't a song he necessarily associated with... um... anyone in particular, but it would be easy to apply to... anyone. But it was fine. It was a good song. He couldn't avoid every love song for the rest of his life – um, until he got over this last relationship. That's what he'd meant. Until he got over it.

He was spared any further mental awkwardness, however, by a truly horrific wailing noise. Another of David's fans had gone up, and was attempting to belt the opening of Christina Aguilera's _Beautiful_. Blaine couldn't help the first thought that crossed his mind, entirely unbidden.

_Kurt could sing that – god, he'd be great._

And then he wished he hadn't thought it. He wished that he had never heard that song. He especially wished he wasn't listening to the worst performance of it in human history. He wished that he wished he'd never heard Kurt's voice, but even hurting as much as he was he couldn't quite make himself.

Thankfully, the woman eventually stumbled off the stage – to the relief of everyone involved.

The next guy that got up was clearly with his coworkers, and although shy at first, did a pretty decent cover of _My Girl._

Then Blaine was up. Wes (who had been responding to text messages with increasing regularity) and David pushed him out of the booth as though he was trying to get out of performing (which he hadn't – he was, despite the occasional horror or mental slip, enjoying himself), and David whispered to him as he made his way to the stage. "Just so you know, I really think you should try out that new song."

Blaine just gave him a look to indicate his determination to the contrary, and went up to the stage. He approached the accompanist and smiled.

"Do you know if there's an acoustic guitar around here, by any chance?"

She smiled – Blaine was the first singer all night who had showed any kind of respect for her as a person rather than a human stereo system. "There should be one over there. There's always some around on open mic nights."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." She wondered if this cute, nice guy was single, then quickly dismissed the thought and went to go watch, paying attention for a change.

He found a guitar and stool, brought them to the mic, and grinned at the audience. He'd missed this. "Hi, I'm Blaine. I'm going to be singing Secret Smile, by Semisonic, and -"

He stopped breathing. He was fairly certain (even though at this point nothing felt certain at all) that his heart had stopped beating.

He was going to murder Wes and David.

Actually, literally _murder them_.

They'd been so understanding when he casually suggested that they take the master bedroom, as one of them could take the couch in there and it would be more convenient. He'd take the guest bedroom. They'd not even blinked whenever he found Kurt's name at the end of a sentence he was completing and abruptly changed the subject. He'd been grateful. Grateful. But he'd forgotten that this was Wes and David. And they were interfering, conniving little shits.

And he was going to _kill _them.

Because his eyes had drifted over to the door and he'd suddenly realized why Wes had been texting, and why his two best friends had been so insistent about going out to this particular club. And it had nothing to do with Wes' confidence, or their need to spend time together before they left.

The evil, sadistic, interfering _bastards_.

Kurt and Mercedes were standing by the door.

And at almost the moment he'd seen Kurt, Kurt had seen him.

And seeing Kurt's face react in the way that it did to seeing him, Blaine, was even worse than missing, or hoping, or sleeping alone.

He'd probably spent a total of months just looking into those blue eyes over the years, and he had never seen that look before. It was anger and resentment, sadness and memory, fear and the instinct to run away and never look back (_Don't ever look back_... _oh, fuck_).

Blaine knew this because he was fairly certain his own eyes were saying the same thing. The fear was the worst part to see. Because now they knew what they could say – what they'd – he'd –

He was angry. He was angry with Kurt, angry with himself, and angry with every single person he had ever met, because they had all contributed to get him to this place and time. He was blindingly furious with Wes and David, and when he reluctantly broke his torturous, mesmerizing eye contact with Kurt after a few seconds, he flicked his eyes over to their table. David was watching him very carefully, like he was trying to read his mind. Wes was looking back and forth between Blaine and Kurt like there was some kind of invisible tennis match going on.

Like it was a game.

Wes thought this was a fucking game, and David saw him as an experiment. He'd known they were interfering, but he'd never doubted for a second that they loved him and, in their odd way, wanted the best.

But this... this was something else.

And as he placed all of his concentration on not yelling, breaking down, or putting on a display of violence that would put drunken brawlers everywhere to shame, he knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to sing. He didn't want to, but the anger coursing through him wasn't giving him a choice. He needed to.

It just sucked that David would get to hear that song after all.

* * *

><p>Kurt hated Mercedes. Mercedes was an evil bitch.<p>

When he'd walked into the club he'd been in a good mood – or as close to a good mood as he felt he was capable of these days. It was Friday night, he didn't have to work, and she had finally convinced him that they needed to blow off some steam – and she knew _exactly _the place.

He'd walked into the room and looked around at the seats, admiring the layout of the gradually filling club. He'd been thinking about his song choices, and whether he should do something a little more upbeat. It would probably be better to -

"Hi, I'm Blaine. I'm -"

At the sound of that name (well, really that first syllable, he'd known before he heard the name) all of the blood rushed from everywhere in his body to his chest.

And then hazel eyes were on his, like they'd been magnetically drawn there somehow, and Kurt was trying so very hard not to remember. And in his efforts not to remember he landed on one, coherent, almost safe thought.

He hated Mercedes. Mercedes was an evil bitch.

And then Blaine started to sing and no thought was safe anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

_[A/N: Songs can be found linked in my profile. I highly recommend listening to them.]_

* * *

><p>And then Blaine started to sing and no thought was safe anymore.<p>

* * *

><p>"Uh, actually slight change of plan. This is something I... wrote." He kept his voice carefully level, and his eyes away from the door.<p>

And then he opened his mouth. And the last few weeks came out.

"_Remember that time that you wouldn't talk to me,_

_You wouldn't talk to me all night?_

_Remember that song, and all the words we'd sing?_

_Well here's a song I'd sing, alright._

_Remember that way... that you'd never lie to me?_

_'cause you'd never lie to me,_

_No way."_

Only the truth? Yeah, right. It seemed everyone was pretty willing to sacrifice the truth to get what they wanted. Wes and David wanted cheap thrills, entertainment. And Kurt... well, they'd both finally told the truth, at any rate. Except... he hadn't, but...

"_You could be faking it_

_Why've you gotta be like that?_

_I don't like the way you act around me._

_So, baby, come on, come on..."_

Kurt and Mercedes were being waved over to their table by Wes and David, and Mercedes seemed to be having trouble getting him to move. Not that he was looking. He was in the middle of something. David wanted to hear the song? Let him. This is what Blaine had to say. And they could take it. All of them.

"_Oh don't you tell me, no,_

_There you go again._

_You're ten out of ten_

_Sorry, did I just stutter?"_

He felt himself smile with that. It was cruel, and calculated, and he saw Kurt flinch as he glanced directly at him. Some part of Blaine was screaming not to keep going, to stop, leave, get away right now, but he was still playing, still singing, and he wasn't done yet. And he was still looking at Kurt, and he knew that it was going to hurt at least as much to say as it was to hear, no matter how true it sometimes felt.

"_Won't tell you what you know,_

_There you go again._

_You were never my friend,_

_You were never my, you were never my lover, no."_

He had to look away.

He actually hesitated as he played the next chords, still torturing the strings of the borrowed guitar with his intensity. This was the section. It had been so painful to write these lyrics, with the memories they inevitably brought back, and he wondered how he would feel if something this personal was being sung about him in a club in front of strangers. But he couldn't think like that, because this wasn't about him and Kurt anymore. This was about the lyrics, and their truth, and the way he'd felt when he was writing them. He took a deep breath.

"_Remember that night,_

_When I saw you standing there,_

_Dark eyes, dark hair,_

_It's just you._

_Remember the way that you were way out of line,_

_And I was way out of time for you._

_And I've got your number,_

_Right next to your name._

_But it ain't no thing._

_No, it ain't enough._

_I've got your word - I know that it's all I'll get._

_Trying to forget_

_Your kind of love."_

Trying so fucking hard...

"_So baby, come on, come on..."_

He was playing and singing on autopilot now, with ferocity, he supposed, but out of habit. What he was really doing was watching Kurt again, as every lyric hit him like a slap. He was trying to forget, and he supposed Kurt must be too. But if he couldn't then Kurt shouldn't be able to either. It was unimaginably cruel, he knew, to be shoving those memories in his face. And in a way it was more masochistic of him than anything else, because, just like always, every flicker of pain he saw in Kurt's eyes felt like a stab wound being inflicted directly to his heart. But he couldn't stop. He wasn't done.

_Oh don't you tell me, no, 'cause there you go again,_

_You're ten out of ten,_

_Sorry, did I just stutter?_

_Won't tell you what you know, there you go again,_

_'Cause you were never my friend,_

_You were never my, you were never my lover._

He smiled out at the audience. It wasn't a nice smile, and he hated himself for being the performer who had to sell it, had to make the song all that it was and more. Shouldn't it be enough that he was torturing himself _and _Kurt with this? What was he doing? Oh, that's right. Those things. That they'd said to each other. Them being over. Done. Right. Ten fucking years...

_I know you could be better_

_You don't have to waste my time._

_It's not like I need you more than I need me_

_And, I, I know that you want it,_

_Trying to get you on it,_

_Baby, we can fuck the rights, turn around and wrong it._

_Spare me your convictions and the promises you keep_

_I've got a better proposition and the friction that you need._

_Don't you tell me that you don't want to_

_Don't you tell me that you don't want to._

When did he get this vicious?

He didn't mean to look at Kurt like that. He really didn't. But that was what those lyrics were. They were a smolder. An angry, hot, almost _visceral_ reminder of how _good _they had been. Not just in bed, although god knows they had been _really _great there. _Fucking hell_. But them. Together. For what Blaine had arrogantly and naively presumed would be forever.

_Oh don't you tell me, no, 'cause there you go again,_

_You're ten out of ten,_

_Sorry, did I just st-st-stutter?_

_Won't tell you what you know, this is the end._

_You were never my friend, you were never my, you were never my lover._

He'd closed his eyes for the final line, needing to disconnect himself from whatever force was making him do this. When he opened his eyes and heard the applause, saw the looks on Mercedes, Wes, and David's faces, he felt a little bit relieved. Until he let himself look over and saw that Kurt had gone.

There was silence as the applause died down, and Blaine made his way back over to the table, clearly fighting to stay calm.

"Wow." Wes' eyes were huge. "And I thought watching them have eye-sex during Warblers performances was bad."

No one responded to that, and David was ordering another round of drinks as Blaine sat back down, concern, anger, and exhaustion fighting for dominance in his features.

* * *

><p>Kurt couldn't talk. There wasn't enough air. He couldn't move. As a matter of fact, he was fairly certain that he would be stuck in that exact position, leaning against the brick wall outside the doors to the club, forever.<p>

That song was... there were no words for that song.

He'd never heard it before. Which meant it was probably new, or, at the very least, recent. Well, he knew it was recent. Because he knew exactly what it was about. It didn't take a genius to decode it.

That song was filled with them. It was them. The lyrics were so clever, so calculated, and so reminiscent of the young boy he had fallen in love with – the first and only person he'd ever really loved - that it had taken his breath away.

It was ironic, he thought, that he had so many different feelings about the song, when it was clearly one written to him in anger and hurt. But the words – the feelings - were so familiar in their intensity that he knew he could have sung them himself. He was just as hurt, just as angry as Blaine was. And that comforted him, in a terrible way. Misery does loves company.

..._dark eyes, dark hair, it's just you_... Blaine had told him on the night that they... their first time...that his eyes only became dark when he was looking at him, thinking of them, with desire. When he was angry they became like ice, but whenever he just _wanted _him, the sparkling blue seemed to become navy, and Blaine, he'd said, would be lost.

_...I've got your number, right next to your name..._the first day they'd met, when the terrible spy had gotten the Dalton boy's phone number, promising to call him if he ever needed anything. The Dalton boy had left his phone in the common room in all the excitement of the performance (or so he'd said at the time), and so Kurt had scribbled his name and number on a gum wrapper Blaine had found in his pocket. He'd realized later that he could have just called or texted...but the point was, that had been the beginning.

On their fifth anniversary Blaine had showed him the worn square, which he'd kept in his wallet every day since. He'd said it was the first thing Kurt had ever given him, the most important, so he was keeping it forever.

Kurt leaned against the wall, trying to remember how to breathe.

He'd realized something while he was listening to that song. While he'd been miserable for the last few weeks, he'd always kind of assumed that would have gone away eventually. It would dull with time, and eventually he'd be able to think of his best friend, or college, or high school, without feeling like a tide of regret was rising up inside of him. He'd be able to see someone with hazel eyes without comparing them to those he had spent what seemed like too short an eternity happily drowning in.

But now he knew better.

Who the hell had he been kidding?

It wasn't just New York that was theirs. _He _was theirs. His _entire life _was theirs. He was about as likely to be able to move on as he ever was to marry Brittany and have 2.5 kids. He hadn't even been able to imagine loving anyone else for over ten years, why would the simple fact that Blaine didn't...that they weren't together anymore change anything? His heart didn't care. It didn't know what they'd said to each other, or what those angry lips were singing. It just recognized Blaine's presence after three weeks of loneliness and wondered why there wasn't snuggling happening already.

God help him, just seeing Blaine - angry and broken as he was - had made his heart hurt a little less. What did that say about him?

He'd never pictured them like this. Well, he'd never pictured them apart at all. But this – the way Blaine's fingers – which he knew like his own – viciously played, his mouth uttering words that Kurt wished he had the courage to say and the talent to set to music...it was like his own special brand of drug. It hurt. He felt like he was bleeding from the intensity of it. But god, he wanted it again.

He wanted Blaine's voice in his ear and his hands running all over him and the knowledge that this was all there would ever be.

..._baby we could fuck the rights, turn around and wrong it..._oh, god, did Blaine know exactly what he was doing. And the way he had looked at him...

It was a thousand times worse now than it was before they started dating, back when Kurt was unflinchingly certain that Blaine would never have feelings for him...ever. Because now he knew what Blaine tasted like... the precise color of his eyes when he was turned on, or unbelievably happy, or so in love that he might actually start singing in public. He knew exactly where he could touch to make him moan, or laugh, or scream, or forget every word of his extensive vocabulary except Kurt's name. And, worst of all, he knew that Blaine had definitely had some kind of feelings for him. All kinds, in fact.

They just hadn't been enough.

Kurt was still there ten minutes later, when the door swung violently open and someone stalked out, yelling over their shoulder.

"I don't care what you thought, Wes, I just want to get the fuck out of here! Don't follow me. Not now. I'll see you later." He was practically spitting the words, and Kurt instinctively took a step towards him.

Blaine turned around to leave, holding his coat, and he froze. They were about four feet from one another.

"Where are you going?" Kurt asked.

"I'm leaving," Blaine replied without thinking.

Both of them blanched slightly as they realized they had just echoed words from their last conversation, like a mirror image.

"You don't have to leave," Kurt pointed out, placing all his effort into not meeting those eyes, because he really just _couldn't _right then. "I'll go. I don't feel much like singing."

"I didn't either, but - no, stay. It's fine. I'm done here." He put on his coat, pulling the gloves that Kurt had gotten him last year on black Friday out of his pocket. They'd been the softest he could find, and they'd joked that Kurt had only bought them because he didn't like feeling the musician's calluses on his boyfriend's fingers. Which was not true in the slightest. Kurt loved everything about Blaine's fingers. He had just wanted them to be warm. It was onl –_Stop it, _Kurt begged his brain. _I can't._

"No, really, I'm going right now," he said desperately. "I'm leaving."

Blaine spoke before he thought again, and the bitter utterance was a slap to the face. "Yeah, well, you're good at that."

Kurt stepped back, and Blaine clenched his fists briefly, closing his eyes. When he opened them they were detached, cold. Kurt almost missed the fire that had been there a second before.

"Kurt – I'm... I don't want to fight. Not now. But seeing – I'm just going to go, okay."

It wasn't really a question, but Kurt nodded, pretending that he wasn't guiltily drinking in every second of conversation, or proximity, because even tense, tortured, angry Blaine was better than no Blaine at all. "Okay."

Blaine took a deep breath, then walked past him, and Kurt was hit with the smell of mint and just... him. It took every ounce of his self-control not to move. He couldn't stop his lips, though.

"The song..."

Blaine froze again, and Kurt could feel him just behind him. He turned to see uncertainty all over that gorgeous face, the one he'd once thought he might have the right to stare into forever. "Yeah?"

"It was... I've never heard you write like that." That wasn't what he wanted to say. That wasn't it at all.

"I think we both know why that is." Blaine laughed, but it was an ugly sound, not the musical laugh that Kurt lived for. "Who knows, maybe now I'll write the next great break-up song..."

He couldn't help but let a tinge of impatience enter his voice. "If that's your new aim in life, then I guess I did you a favor."

All the anger was gone. Now he just sounded resigned. "Maybe you did."

He went to leave again, and Kurt couldn't help himself. "Remember when we first started dating, and we promised each other we'd always be friends, no matter what happened?"

Blaine let out something between a huff of impatience, a snort, and a sigh. His breath was visible in the air, and Kurt idly wondered if he was breathing those same molecules in. He hoped so. "Do you _feel _like being friends with me, Kurt?"

He honestly had no idea what he felt like right then.

Blaine took his silence and left it there.

The sounds of the city were present, just like always, but instead of providing a background track they were suddenly everywhere, suffocating them both. Kurt saw his breath in the air, deep, measured as he tried so hard not to think, to just be, because while even being hurt right now, it was nothing next to remembering.

"I should go," Blaine finally said, his voice horribly polite. " You go back in. Really. Sing." Kurt recognized it as the tone he adopted with clients he didn't really care for, and hearing Blaine address him with that indifference, even though he knew it was masking something much deeper, was worse than bitterness. It was impersonal, and cold, and those were two words he had never had to apply to them before. No matter what they said, or did, or meant to each other, there had always been passion behind it.

"Wes and David are still there," Kurt pointed out.

"Yeah, I'll talk to them later. It's their last night in New York, I really don't want to spend it yelling at them...just like I don't want to spend it standing in the cold, pretending this conversation can go anywhere pleasant when we're both like this."

"Like what?"

Blaine just gave him a look. "Goodnight, Kurt." He hesitated, and his voice was a tiny bit softer. "Take care of yourself."

Kurt reluctantly took a step towards the door and opened it. "You too. I guess I'll..."

Blaine nodded, but didn't move. Neither of them did. They just stood there, waiting.

Someone pushed the door open from the inside, and a couple came out, holding each other. Kurt grabbed the door as it started to close, and both of their eyes followed the couple as they walked a few steps down the street, the man's arm securely around the woman's waist. After a few steps she reached up to kiss her husband or boyfriend on the nose, and they both giggled.

Blaine and Kurt's eyes snapped to each other in an unspoken shared memory. Then they quickly looked away. Kurt went inside without another word.

* * *

><p>Sitting down next to Mercedes, and pointedly ignoring all three of his friends' attempts to get him to talk to them, Kurt took a sip of the drink that was sitting in front of him. Vodka on the rocks with a twist and a pinch of salt. He knew it was weird, but it tasted good. He begrudgingly thanked Mercedes for ordering it for him, not looking her in the eye. He really was still pretty angry, he just didn't have the energy anymore to argue about it.<p>

She hesitated before responding. "Actually, I didn't know what you drank nowadays. We always just do red wine. Blaine ordered it for you."

Kurt put the glass down. Of course he had. Because even when he was bitter and angry and behaving like he couldn't stand the sight of him, Blaine was still _Blaine_ _Anderson Hamilton._And he would never let Mercedes order Kurt a glass of wine on a Friday, because Blaine knew he usually had an early morning shoot on Saturday, and red wine was more likely to give him a headache.

Just like Kurt knew that the glass that sat in what he presumed must have been Blaine's seat had contained a double scotch, no ice, because there was a folded napkin sitting under it and he _always_ folded his napkin in half when he drank scotch. He'd also had a particularly bad day at work, because he had finished the drink, and had picked up one of the coffee stirrers and stuck it in the glass like a straw. He'd been fidgeting before he sang, and possibly when he'd come back to the table afterwards, when they'd ordered more drinks. Kurt wished he'd asked what was wrong, then realized that he didn't have the right to anymore, and might also be part of the problem. Oh, god, was something happening at work, and Blaine was too distracted by them to be able to cope? He was about to ask Wes and David about this, too worried to care what they thought, when his name was announced (he hadn't even heard people singing) and Mercedes nudged him, smiling tentatively, asking silently for forgiveness and offering an apology for whatever had happened outside.

"Go on... rock some Swift for us, boy!"

But Kurt had changed his mind about the song. He wasn't feeling like that anymore. He was feeling like he needed not to be so sad, or angry, or hurt, and maybe the best way to make himself feel like he was beginning to feel healthy about this was to fool himself by singing it. He pulled sheet music out of his bag, and decided that he hadn't been wrong to stick it in there at the last second. This was a song he partly wished Blaine could hear, even though it was technically one of _theirs_, in a way. Because having heard what Blaine was obviously feeling, he kind of needed to speak for himself.

He walked up to the accompanist, who smiled at the cat-calls he was receiving from Wes and David. "Your friends are great," she grinned. "and the Queen-guy was fantastically entertaining. That other guy who was with you was phenomenal. Easily the best we've had in here in ages."

"Yeah," Kurt smiled despite himself. "I know."

"Can I ask you a question?" She asked, taking the music from him.

"Sure," he shrugged.

"Is your friend, the one who just sang... is he single?"

His smile disappeared and he took a deep breath. He told the truth.

"Yeah, I guess he is."

God, that hurt to say. And to mean.

The girl smiled over the pages, oblivious. "Good to know. This is a great song, by the way. I've never seen it. You're a countertenor?"

It wasn't her fault, he knew. Blaine was just one of those people you remembered, and wanted to know.

Fuck, did he know that.

"Only by night. By day I'm a struggling fashion designer."

"Ooh," she played the intro experimentally, biting her lip. "I'm afraid I don't know much about fashion."

"I wouldn't say that. Those earrings are fantastic."

She touched one gratefully. "Thanks. My mom made them for me."

"Tell your mom she needs to start selling them. I know at least three of my friends would _love _jewelry like that – it's just their style. I'd be her first customer of many."

She grinned. "I'll pass on the message. I'm Amy." She held out her hand and he took it.

"Kurt. I suppose I'd better go sing, before Wes and David actually break something."

They both glanced over to his friends' table, where Mercedes was trying to stop Wes from starting a chorus of 'Why are we waiting?'

She snorted and turned back to the piano, winking at him. "Let's go then."

He took a deep breath (something he seemed to do a lot more of recently), walked center stage, and picked up the mic, switching it on.

"Hi, I'm Kurt, and this is a song – it's by Tom Kitt, and it... well, it was cut from the musical High Fidelity, but I really like it, and I think it's kind of... well, I think it's important. To me. It's called _Perfect_."

Amy got the first chord wrong, but quickly adjusted to cover it. Kurt couldn't help the thought that crossed his mind just before he started singing.

_Blaine_ _wouldn't have done that. And if he had, he'd have made it work._

And then he had to sing, and somehow having that thought still in his brain made it a thousand times harder even that he'd thought it would be.

"_We have to say good bye,_

_All things have to end._

_But I keep insisting,_

_I go on resisting._

_Why should I pretend?"_

He took a very deep breath and tried not to remember the first time he'd sung this song.

_"We paid for some mistakes_

_We never should have made._

_So it seems we were living in dreams,_

_But now those dreams fade."_

He wasn't playing to an audience, and he wasn't looking at his friends' faces. He was looking out into the dimness of the club, thinking that he wished these words didn't ring as truly as they did. It was horribly ironic, really.

_"In a perfect world_

_You'd hold me forever._

_In a perfect world, our love would stand tall._

_But I'm not perfect,_

_And you're not perfect,_

_Cause if you were_

_I wouldn't have loved you at all."_

He was not going to cry. He was not. Not here, not in front of all these people. It was not going to happen.

_"It took a little time_

_For me to come so far._

_But finally I see_

_That our impurity_

_Makes us who we are..._

_There's no going back..._

_We can't undo the past._

_We've mastered the art_

_Of breaking apart_

_And falling so fast."_

He imagined that Blaine was there, that he was hearing this, and he felt a kind of peace, the feeling of completion he always got when he felt those lips on his cheek, or that hand in his. And then he came back, and he was alone on a stage, singing to a room of strangers.

_"In a perfect world  
>You wouldn't have left me...<br>Feeling left out, abandoned, and small."_

Another breath.

_"But I'm not perfect,_

_And you're not perfect,_

_'Cause if you were_

_I wouldn't have loved you._

_So I'm sorry for the million awful things I did and said,_

_And the million other things I could have said and done instead._

_And I'm sorry you won't spend each minute growing old with me._

_I'm sorry that our life will never be..."_

This hurt. It actually, physically hurt.

_"The two of us on Sunday morning,  
>Waking as the light shines through.<br>Knowing at that very moment  
>That I love you... and you love me, too.<em>

He could sing that note in his sleep, but his voice cracked at the last moment, and that made the closing lines so much harder in their unflinching truth.

_"In a perfect world, we'd get to raise a family..._

_In a perfect house with pictures on the wall._

_But I'm not perfect, and you're not perfect,_

_And nothing's perfect._

_If we were perfect_

_We'd wake up one day unable to recall..._

_If we had ever truly loved... at all."_

Kurt stepped off the stage before the applause had really started, having sung his peace. In the shadows, by the door, Blaine closed his eyes for a long moment, then wrapped his coat more tightly around himself and left.

* * *

><p>How hard was it? "Hello, Kurt. How are you? No, I'm fine. I have to go. See you later."<p>

Not that difficult. He knew all of those words.

What had he gone with? "Leaving, yeah, well, you're good at that."

He was such an asshole. No wonder his boyfriend fucking left him.

Blaine walked back to his apartment fuming, mostly at himself.

He hated the tone he'd used. He hated the bitterness in his voice. And he'd especially hated the way Kurt had stepped away from him when he spoke, as though he'd actually hit him.

And most of all he hated the flashback it had given him to four weeks before, when everything had fallen apart.

"_If it's so fucking torturous to be here, then why don't you just leave?"_

"_You know, I really have no idea. Why don't you just go buy something to make you feel better? Maybe another piano?"_

"_Oh, fuck off. You know that isn't even remotely fair. At least I'm not becoming so insecure about my career choices that I refuse to take chances so I can be happy!"_

"_No, you just let them work you to death - and practically whore you out - for absolutely no reward! God, you're such a coward. And happiness? What has that got to do with what we're doing right now? Or what we have been doing for what seems like a fucking eternity..."_

"_What the hell _are _we doing here?"_

"_I would have thought that was pretty fucking obvious, Blaine."_

Fuck. He did not want to remember that. Ever. And that wasn't even the most painful part of that night. Regret ate away at him, and he pushed it aside determinedly.

He was still furious at David, Mercedes and Wes. But he knew that he wouldn't have reacted as badly, wouldn't have sung that song, let alone with such venom, wouldn't have lashed out at Kurt, who was just trying make the best of a terrible, heart-breaking situation, if lunch today hadn't happened.

* * *

><p><em>1pm, Friday afternoon:<em>

_Business. All business. Blaine sat at the table in the restaurant, busying himself with the contract he needed to get signed, and avoided looking at the table next to him, where a couple was canoodling over their plates, feeding each other bites of something exotic looking._

_Blaine chose to forget that he had been part of a couple that had done the same thing for years, instead opting to feel disgusted by public displays of affection in general. He sipped his water irritably and ordered a lemonade. He would have made it something stronger, but he'd need his wits about him for this one._

_Nadia was late. Again. Which shouldn't really surprise him, but he'd really hoped to get this lunch meeting out of the way so he could get back to the office and leave a little early tonight. He knew Wes and David were excited about karaoke, and he didn't want to end up trapped at work. They'd kill him._

_But the senior partner of Westman Industries, the company that needed to sign the contract so that he and his colleagues could get going again on the lawsuit they were leveling at a tabloid, had been detained in a meeting._

_So he was sending Nadia Chapman, one of his underlings._

_Blaine_ _had sighed deeply when he was told this._

_Kurt had referred to her as "that evil bitch from hell" having only met her for about a minute and a half._

_That minute and a half, to be fair, had been Nadia explaining to Kurt that she was convinced Blaine was into her, and she'd known guys like him before, and they just needed a real woman to show them what they were missing. Blaine had actually had to pull Kurt away, without even knowing the circumstances, when he saw the look on his boyfriend's face._

_Kurt had relayed this conversation to Blaine after they left the dinner party, which Westman Industries had held for everyone involved in the suit (and to which Blaine had obviously invited Kurt), and he had dismissed it as exaggeration._

_He had had to apologize, and talk Kurt (and Mercedes) out of cutting a bitch two weeks later, when Nadia had grabbed him in the elevator and attempted to stick her tongue down his throat. Unsuccessfully, thank god. Blaine had excellent reflexes. And he really was sorry she'd ended up licking and colliding with the wall. Really._

_Blaine had been hit on by women before a fair few times. He had been present when Kurt had been hit on by women almost as often. It was always something they found kind of funny. During his senior year of college they'd even gotten cornered at a club one memorable night by a pair of twins (a boy and a girl) who had not seemed to be deterred by their explanation that they were actually a couple, and had kept waiting for an answer to their proposition. Blaine had looked at the slightly shellshocked look on his boyfriend's face (not liking one bit the faint flicker of interest he saw there as the male twin stretched his arms, making his shirt ride up to reveal what even Blaine could admit were impressive abdominal muscles) and politely declined._

_But this was different. And his boyfriend was _not _pleased._

_She was delusional, he had said soothingly to Kurt, but essentially harmless. He'd talked to her about it (again), and made it clear he was not interested, and anything further would mean he'd have to talk to her boss._

_She had reluctantly backed off. That was three months ago._

_And now he had to have lunch with her._

_He was just really not in the mood._

"_Blaine, darling! So wonderful to see you! You look absolutely delicious, as always."_

"_Hi, Nadia." He'd been taught to return compliments, but he made an exception in this case._

_The redhead settled herself comfortably in her chair, crossed her legs in a way that made her short skirt appear invisible, and tossed her hair. "It's been ages! Have you missed me?" She fluttered her eyelashes in a way that Blaine presumed she thought was sexy, but just made him wonder if her eyelashes were weighed down by all that mascara._

"_Not really," Blaine replied, not particularly caring to play her game. "Can we do this, so I can get back to the office?"_

"_Honey, we can do whatever you like, as quickly or slowly as you want." She winked at him._

"_Good," he said indifferently, handing her a pen. "sign here and here, and initial here. Matt told me your bosses already approved the fine print, so if you'll just -"_

_Nadia was sucking on the pen thoughtfully, and cut him off. "So, have you changed your mind yet?"_

_Blaine didn't blink, he just flipped the page. "No, Nadia, still gay. I also need you to check these numbers against yours -"_

"_How about that little boy of yours. Kevin? Calvin?"_

"_Kurt," Blaine spat through gritted teeth. God, he hated this woman._

"_Ah, yes. Tell me, have you ever tried playing for the other team? Because I am telling you, honey, you have no idea what you are missing. Only having met him for about four seconds, I can tell you right now that you can do much better. I'm guessing that, in bed at least, he's not exactly -"_

_Something in Blaine snapped. "Shut up, Nadia. You have no fucking idea what you are talking about."_

_Her amber eyes narrowed, and Blaine was reminded of a snake sensing movement in the undergrowth. "Someone's touchy. Trouble in paradise, Blaine? I can help, if you'd like. I can make you-"_

_Blaine was actually in shock, and jumped about a foot in the air when he felt her foot slide up his leg. The woman was insane. Actually insane._

_He grabbed the papers of the table and threw a twenty dollar bill down to cover the drink he'd ordered, standing. "I'm done here, Nadia. If you can't respect me, my boyfriend, or my repeated requests for you to back the hell off and crawl back into whosever bed you came from today, then my firm will have to find someone else to handle your company."_

_She looked at him for a moment, then snorted. "Don't be idiotic. This case is huge for you."_

"_And you are a hugely arrogant, unpleasant woman."_

_She smiled coldly. "I hope that the little walking stereotype is worth the professional fallout."_

_He paused, his fingers tightening on the folder. "If you are referring to Kurt, and for your sake I hope you aren't, then he's worth a hell of a lot more than just that."_

"_We'll see."_

_He gave her a pitying look before walking away. "I feel very sorry for you, Nadia."_

_She shrugged. "Don't. It's your loss. Stick with the trash."_

_Blaine breathed. In. Out. In. Out._

_And then, with tremendous effort, he walked away._

_It wasn't until he was out of the restaurant that he realized he hadn't referred to Kurt as his ex-boyfriend. Oops._

_When he got back to the office he told Michael, the senior partner who had assigned him the case, that he was dropping it, or handing it off, and if anyone had a problem with that then he quit. It was the most passionate he'd ever been about anything since he started working there over a year ago._

_Michael sighed and said he'd hoped that assigning someone as sure of himself and qualified as Blaine, with the added bonus that he wasn't attracted to women, might have altered 'that evil snake''s success rate- she'd caused Westman to go through more lawyers than anyone could count. Unfortunately, she was sleeping with the boss, so no one had done anything about it. Michael waved him out of the office, picked up his phone and had his assistant put him through to Andrew Westman. The first words out of his mouth were "Drew, I don't care if she gives the best oral sex this side of the Mississippi, if you don't fire that evil harpy before my entire staff threatens to quit, I swear to god I'll -"._

_Blaine's first thought as the door closed was that it was a pity Michael and Kurt had never met when Kurt had visited him at work, or spent time with his colleagues. They'd probably get along. His second thought was that they probably never would now. His third was that he needed to stop thinking about Kurt, because this was not the way to move on. His final thoughts before he forced himself to focus on work for the afternoon were that the phrase "moving on" had never made him feel so empty as it did when he had to apply it to himself and Kurt, and that he'd meant every word when he said that Kurt was worth a hell of a lot more to him than his job. Which was probably not a traditional part of the 'moving on' process. Not that he was really familiar with it. After all, he'd never really imagined it would ever be necessary. And that made him annoyed all over again._

* * *

><p>He hadn't meant to go in to hear Kurt sing. He'd just been standing there in the cold, after Kurt had gone back inside, and he hadn't felt ready to move. He wanted to apologize for saying those things – not the ones when they broke up... he knew he couldn't ever apologize for those, but tonight he really hadn't meant to snap – but he couldn't quite make himself move. There were a few people wandering in and out of the doors, talking on cell phones, or taking out keys, and as the door was pushed open a few minutes later he heard Kurt's name being announced.<p>

He'd stepped back inside without thinking, and found himself a place to stand by the door, slightly more hidden than where he'd spotted Kurt earlier. He watched as Kurt took some music out, walked up to the girl at the piano, and they had a quick exchange. He saw Kurt's posture stiffen, and fought the urge to go check what was wrong. Then he seemed to relax, the conversation continued, and he saw the accompanist smile at Kurt.

The jealous monster in his chest growled slightly, and he reminded himself that he was being ridiculous.

Kurt could flirt with whoever he liked. They weren't together anymore (The jealous monster was confused and sad).

Not that he _was_ flirting, because, in Blaine's fairly extensive experience , he was most definitely gay (The jealous monster perked up a little at that thought).

And it was therefore totally unreasonable on several levels for him to wish that Kurt was smiling at him instead of her (The jealous monster gave up trying to follow this inner monologue and went to hang out in his appendix for some peace and quiet).

A moment later, he found himself watching Kurt introduce the song, and he blinked rapidly when he heard the composers name.

He _wasn't_.

Oh, fuck, he _was_.

Well wasn't Blaine just about the biggest asshole on the planet?

He didn't need to hear the title of the song, and when the girl accompanying Kurt started with the wrong chord, he winced. No one else probably noticed (except maybe David), but Blaine would know. It was his arrangement. Well, no, it was Tom Kitt's arrangement, but he'd written it down.

His freshman year of college, in about the middle of October, he'd been talking to his boyfriend on skype, missing him so much that teenage him had actually though he might die of the separation (teenage Blaine and Kurt had not discovered the joys of phone sex yet, which, while a poor substitute for actually being able to hold his boyfriend and kiss him whenever he felt like it, significantly improved the long-distance experience), when Kurt had minorly (for him) freaked out about not being able to find a song for his upcoming college auditions, which he had to do, being a double major. Blaine had calmed him down, reminded him he had months to prepare, then spent three days getting no sleep as he scoured the internet for possibilities. When he came home the next weekend he'd transcribed the piano sections of three songs that had been cut from musicals before opening night, but were perfect for Kurt's voice. His boyfriend had hugged him somewhat viciously, in his dorm room at Dalton, and said he didn't know how he'd ever be able to thank him. Blaine had joked that he was sure they'd think of something. In fact, the smile was a good start, but how about another kiss and they'd call it even?

Kurt had decided that a smile and kiss just wasn't enough, especially not having seen him in weeks, and Blaine had never been able to wear that shirt again, on account of the fact that all of the buttons had been ripped off. He couldn't really pretend to be upset, though.

Kurt had more than made it up to him.

In fact, Blaine had felt compelled to remind him, somewhat breathlessly, that he had lots of shirts at his house, and even more in his dorm room in New York, if Kurt ever felt a particularly violent surge of hatred for buttons again.

Kurt's mouth was busy, so he didn't really reply, but Blaine could tell he liked that idea.

And when they woke up in each others arms for the first time in far too long the next morning (against Dalton rules, but Blaine was universally adored and Kurt had drawn a single room, so whatever), Kurt had sang through all three songs, and decided that _Perfect _was his favorite.

It had been Blaine's favorite too, because Tom Kitt was a genius.

And that song had gotten Kurt a scholarship to NYU. Well, that was what Kurt said. Blaine knew that it was actually his boyfriend's phenomenal voice and ridiculously intelligent essays/portfolio that got him into NYU. And though he reminded Kurt of this whenever it came up, he couldn't say he was especially sorry for the extra adoration that came his way.

And it was proving very difficult for him to listen to that song without remembering that morning at Dalton, or the day Kurt had gotten his acceptance letter, or the day they'd moved into their first apartment together, or -

It was just really hard not to remember.

And it was even harder not to do what he'd done the first time he'd heard Kurt sing it, which was rub his eyes sleepily, gazing adoringly at his beautiful, talented, amazing boyfriend.

That is... ex-boyfriend.

But Blaine allowed himself to be selfish for a moment, knowing it would only hurt later. He decided to go back there.

He was there, and there was sunlight sneaking through the pale curtains, and Kurt was sitting in bed, next to him, inches away, even, so close that he could reach out and take his hand. And he did, and Kurt was awkwardly flipping the pages of the sheet music one-handed as he sang it through a cappella because he didn't want to let go. And Blaine lifted his head off the pillow so it was supported by his elbow and forearm, so he could appreciate the music better, as well as the mostly unclothed boy singing it, and Kurt punctuated a few of the lines by kissing him, which, Blaine pointed out, was not exactly in the spirit of the song. Kurt had pulled away, which had caused him to reconsider his position, both literally and figuratively. He had been tracing shapes idly on his boyfriend's bare skin, and this had rapidly evolved into a tickling fight, which had then evolved into something entirely different. They'd ended up on the floor in a tangle of sheet music and blankets, and Kurt hadn't made it to Warbler's rehearsal that day. Or the next day. He probably wouldn't have made it to class on Monday either if Blaine's mother hadn't called to enquire as to whether he was actually going to come home before he left, and also, was Kurt coming for dinner? Because she had a wonderful new painting he'd love. And did he know all his clothes had been washed, and he needed to pack at some point?

Blaine chose not to point out that he hadn't really needed them so far that weekend. His mother was smarter than to ask.

"_I'm sorry that our life will never be_

_The two of us on Sunday morning_

_Waking as the light shines through_

_Knowing at that very moment that I love you._

_And you love me too..."_

But the thing is it _had _been. For years, it was. At least it was until they both negated all of those memories with words that burnt like acid.

But Blaine's eyes were still closed. He was still there, in a dorm room at Dalton, holding on for as long as he could to the sensation of hands and lips on skin, the warmth of a hug enveloping him, blue eyes looking sleepily into his.

And then the song was over, his subconscious had noticed the way Kurt's voice cracked, and he opened his eyes to the present. He saw Kurt leaving the stage, slightly dazed, heard the applause, and had to remember everything. It stung even more now. But those few minutes had been worth it.

In his spot in the corner, unnoticed by everyone except Amy, who had glanced over to see if the cute bartender was working tonight, Blaine closed his eyes for a moment, then wrapped his coat tightly around himself and left.


	3. Chapter 3

_[A/N: Songs are linked in my profile. The song in this chapter and the scene around it were originally inspired by my wonderful friend and beta, Kat._

__(Edit: An anon linked me to the song 'Here Comes The...' by Butch Walker, and it is a perfect song to suit the mood of the story to this point. It is linked in my profile.)__

_And a reminder (for later): this is not canon with the events in Original Song, as it is a sequel to a previous story._

_Also, the canon characters do not belong to me. They belong to Fox and Ryan Murphy. ]_

* * *

><p>Kurt and Mercedes traveled back to her apartment that night in stony silence. When they got there, she opened the door and Kurt went straight in, head held high.<p>

"Kurt, I -"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"We didn't mean to -"

He rounded on her in the living room.

"No, Mercedes. I do not want to hear about how entertaining you, David, and Wesley found orchestrating that little gem. I am not interested."

"Kurt, he's hurting too..."

"I'm sure he's fucking hurting! I heard the song. Thanks for that, by the way. Because that wasn't like a knife to the chest, or anything..."

Mercedes wasn't fighting back. "You should talk to him."

"I _did _talk to him, Mercedes. And he reminded me that I left, and said I probably did him a favor. I hope _that_ was part of your plan." There were tears in his eyes now, and this was _so_ not what he wanted to be doing, not where he wanted to be. He didn't want Mercedes to be looking at him like her heart was broken too, because it wasn't. "I have a shoot in the morning, I'm going to bed."

"Kurt, wait!"

"No, Mercedes. I just... I can't do this now."

He walked into the guest bedroom, closed the door, and then sunk to the floor against it, crying for himself, Blaine, a song full of anger, and eyes usually filled with warmth and fire that were now full of bitterness and detachment.

* * *

><p>Blaine's alarm went off shrilly the next morning, which, some part of his memory registered as he swatted at it, was odd, because it was Saturday, and Wes and David's flight wasn't until the afternoon, so he hadn't set an alarm. Also, his head really hurt, and was there sand in his mouth? And why was there ringing happening?<p>

Oh, the phone was ringing.

"Kurt, can you get that?" he muttered, burrowing under the blankets.

No response. Blaine opened his eyes. He was in the guest bedroom.

Fuck.

He crawled across the bed to get his cellphone, and sighed deeply when he saw the caller ID.

'Michael Parker – ParkerKaneAssociates'. His boss was calling him at – he looked at the clock – 9:30am on a Saturday. And he was hungover, thanks to Wes and David. Superb.

He ignored Kurt's indignant voice in the back of his mind and picked up the phone, trying to sound awake.

'Blaine Anderson.'

'Blaine! Hi, it's Michael. I was wondering if you could do me a favor. Drew Westman has finally sacked that evil harpy, and his nephew is taking over the role of liaison, I think. Anyway, he has to leave for Paris this afternoon, but wanted to know if you could meet him for an early lunch in about an hour, just to show him the file , get him up to speed– I think you have it, right? I told him you'd be there. Just thought I'd give you a heads up. Nothing fancy, just Lucille's at eleven? Thanks, Blaine, you're a diamond. Bye.'

He blinked at the phone. Lucille's in an hour. Luckily, he knew where it was, because it was right near Kurt's office. Kurt. No. Work. If he made it quick, he'd make it back to take Wes and David to the airport, but they were going to be pissed. Not that they really had any right to be, after last night. Especially since they'd gotten home to find a depressed, furious Blaine, and convinced him that a couple of drinks with his oldest friends would make the night suck a little less.

Wes had kept pouring, and they'd all kept drinking.

Hence the headache.

Shower. He needed to shower and change. And go downtown. On a Saturday morning.

"_No, you just let them work you to death - and practically whore you out - for absolutely no reward!"_

No, that wasn't it. He liked his job... most of the time. Well, he had at first. This was just a necessary part of doing business. His firm appreciated him. They did.

"_I thought you wanted to go out on your own, Blaine. Isn't that what you said when you passed the barr? You wanted to make a difference, on your own terms? What happened to that? You have the __money, what the hell is the problem? And what about writing? When was the last time you wrote __anything? I thought you wanted -"_

"_Let it go, Kurt. And wait – _I _have the money? Since when is this about _my_ money and _your_ money? I thought it was ours?"_

"_You know what I mean."_

"_No, I don't. You know I don't. And if we have the money, then why are you still working for that godawful woman? What about you, Kurt? Was it just an idle, errant whim when you told me you wanted to design your own stuff? Or are you actually happy playing lapdog to a washed-up, bitter, exploitive old hag? She stole your fucking concept, Kurt! We both know you have more talent in your pinky finger that she has in her entire body!"_

"_You're one to talk, Mr. Sell-Out-Corporate-Lawyer."_

"_You know, you are being a real fucking jackass right now."_

"_You'd better hurry along, Mr. Anderson-Hamilton. It's Sunday afternoon, someone at the office might need a latte, or someone exploited. You, for instance."_

"_Shut the fuck up! I told you, I'll make it up to you."_

"_That pile of IOUs is getting pretty big, Blaine.'_

"_At least I didn't cancel dinner on our nine year anniversary because my boss insisted she needed me to work all night."_

"_You know I didn't want to-"_

"_But you did it, didn't you?"_

Blaine turned the shower on, and leaned his head against the cool glass of the shower door.

Today was going to suck.

* * *

><p>He was only five minutes late to the shoot that morning, which was remarkable, as Lana had pushed it all forward, without ever having any intention of showing up. She always said she was going to, but at the last minute Kurt would get an email or a text. Something vital had come up, and Kurt could handle everything, couldn't he? All he had to do was oversee the shoot, and look at the proofs and sketches for the following week.<p>

"Morning, Kurt," Eva chirped, taking out a camera. "You look like hell." She handed him a latte.

"Thanks, angel," he replied, taking a sip. He loved Eva. She was snarky, and stylish, and one hell of a business woman. Recently she'd been running the PR campaigns, and she despised Lana just as much as Kurt did. This, she had explained to Kurt, on the first night they had bonded, when Kurt had been working there for three days and had had to stay the night, as she had pulled a flask of hot coffee and a bottle of wine out of her bag, had something to do with the fact that no matter how well she did at her job, or how long she'd worked there, Lana would always refer to her as 'that girl with the horrible neon hair'.

Eva's hair was cut into a bob, and dyed bright pink (for the moment), and it suited her totally. She looked kind of like a pixie. Kurt adored her, and he and Blaine had gone out quite a bit with Eva and her boyfriend.

But he still hadn't told her. He just couldn't.

"The sketches are over there," she waved vaguely towards a table on the other side of the room, "and everything here should be good to go soon. I can't see this taking very long. Wanna get lunch? My friend is meeting me at this place, it's supposed to be good."

Kurt shrugged. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to be. Or a boyfriend to meet. "Sure."

"Cool. Tell Blaine he should come too – I haven't seen him around in forever!"

He tried very hard not to drop his coffee.

He could not keep doing this. He could not. As long as people didn't know, they'd keep asking about him, and he just couldn't take that right now. He took a deep breath.

"Actually, Eva, the truth is -"

"Eva! I need your help!" One of the models waved frantically, talking on her cell phone.

"Sorry, Kurt, honey, I'll be back in a sec. Hold that thought?" She rolled her eyes and ran off.

He stood there, just holding his coffee. He did not want to be there. He wanted to be in bed. In an ideal world he'd be in bed with Blaine, but as that seemed to be a thing of the fucking past he'd settle for just bed. God, their sheets had been so soft, and the view, with the small balcony, where they'd -

He forced himself to stop. Not helping.

He walked over to the table and opened the folder.

And dropped his coffee.

Because he _loved_ the designs.

In fact, there was never any way he wouldn't have loved the designs.

Mostly because he remembered sitting in a restaurant about 5 months ago with Blaine, using a pencil to scribble and sketch them onto a napkin.

They'd been on his desk for weeks.

And now they were in the folder, with Lana's initials in the corner.

"_She stole your fucking concept, Kurt!...Why are you still working for that godawful woman?"_

The concept had been one thing. He'd been annoyed about that.

But this was something else.

"Kurt, you ready?"

He snapped the folder closed and turned around, breathing very deliberately.

"Sure," he smiled at Eva, trying to stay calm.

She gestured to the folder. "Surprise, huh?"

_What?_

She elaborated. "I mean, I thought Lana was all washed up, but those are actually good. I was shocked."

He nearly said thank you. He nearly told her that they were his designs, and Lana had clearly seen and stolen them. But who the hell would believe him?

Except Blaine, of course.

He shook his head to rid himself of the images, and went to work. He was hungry, and wished they could just skip to the end of lunch, so he could go home. To Mercedes'. And question what the hell he was doing with his life.

* * *

><p>"Blaine?"<p>

He stood up and turned at the sound of his name, putting down his glass of water, and offered his hand. "Yes, you must be Jack Westman."

The young man smiled. "Indeed. I'm so sorry I'm a few minutes late. I hope you ordered."

"Thanks, but I can't stay long. I have an appointment."

Jack smiled. It was a nice smile, Blaine noticed absently. And he had blue eyes. They weren't as blue as Kurt's, because no one in the world had eyes as blue as Kurt's, but they were nice. "Well, let's get to it, then, shall we?"

Blaine pulled a folder out of his briefcase, and felt a little underdressed. He wasn't wearing a suit, because it was Saturday morning, for crying out loud, but he was in a nice button down shirt (which Kurt had gotten him last time he was in London, because he'd said the colors reminded him of them, blue and dark green thin stripes) and really was better dressed than most of the people in the restaurant. But Jack Westman was in a full suit (which was Gucci, Blaine knew, because he hadn't lived with a fashion designer for almost a decade without learning something), which made him look about thirty times more important, and fifty times more handsome, than anyone else in the room.

"So, Blaine, I hear you're to thank for getting rid of Nadia."

He snapped back to reality, and wasn't really sure how to respond to that.

"I guess. I didn't know she'd get fired, but she's... well, I found her quite difficult to deal with," he said diplomatically.

Jack laughed. "She's an evil, conniving bitch."

"Or that."

"Honestly, you have no idea how many people were glad to see the back of her. I think every single employee's significant other probably opened a bottle of champagne in your honor. Even my ex was pleased."

"Oh," Blaine asked, " did she have trouble with her too?"

Jack sipped his water calmly. "Let's just say that he wasn't her biggest fan."

_He._

Blaine knew he should feel something about the information that this cute, intelligent guy was gay, and probably single, but now he was just thinking about how much Kurt would love the fact that Nadia was gone. How they'd celebrate. How they _would have _celebrated.

"Yeah," he contributed, "my boyfriend" - he had to stop doing that, he realized. Best start as soon as possible - "I mean, my ex-boyfriend " - oh god, he could not be talking about Kurt. He could not be saying this. This was not happening. _Breathe. _He made himself calm down and finish the damn sentence - " he... uh, he wasn't a huge fan of her either."

Jack's eyebrows went up. "I think Nadia saw sexual orientation as a challenge to be overcome. I think the worst time was when she ordered champagne and waited in my office, ready to pounce."

"She didn't?"

"Oh, she definitely did. My secretary got the shock of her life. If Nadia hadn't been sleeping with my uncle she'd have been gone years ago, and countless couples would have been saved a lot of trouble."

They both laughed quietly and started discussing the particulars of the contract, with Blaine trying not to notice that he was being hit on. Very subtly, and respectfully, but totally being hit on nonetheless. He'd felt pretty uncomfortable when it had happened at the bar, with Wes and David, because it had been a long time since he'd had the ability to say yes, if he had wanted to. And he hadn't. Wanted to, that was. And he didn't want to now. He just couldn't make himself imagine going out with Jack Westman. It felt like by even considering the possibility he'd be betraying something. But what? Not a relationship, he didn't have one of those anymore. Not Kurt, who clearly had left. So what?

As he considered this he continued working, their waiter brought appetizers, and he decided he needed to stop doing this – letting everything come back to the break up. He was an adult, for crying out loud. He needed to pull it the hell together.

* * *

><p>Kurt wasn't hungry, but Eva hadn't spent much time with him in the last few weeks, and she was insistent. He was coming to lunch with her whether he liked it or not.<p>

Her friend was a nice guy, but he was one of those people that compulsively flirted and checked out everything that moved. He also had a very irritating habit of guiding people through doors, like they couldn't walk through them without help. Kurt had fought the urge to slap the stranger's hand from the small of his back when they'd met outside the restaurant. Eva had whispered to him that he didn't mean anything by it, he was just a little tactile.

_Yeah, well, so are giant squid, _he thought_,_ _but you don't take them to lunch_.

He just didn't want to be touched.

Unless it was Blaine.

_Wait, fuck. No. Fuck._

As they were shown to a table Kurt made a decision. He was not going to think about Blaine Anderson Hamilton (or his eyes... or his voice... or his -) for the rest of lunch. Baby steps.

So something else. Something – wait. The back of that guy's head looked really familiar. And that shirt was -

_Oh holy hell_.

_How many fucking people live in New York?_ Kurt wondered, craning his head to look, despite himself. Because he seemed to keep running into the same ones over and over again.

And then he saw.

Not only was it Blaine, but he was on a fucking _date_.

He and some guy, who Kurt actually loathed at first glance, were holding hands over the table.

He stopped dead and tried not to be sick.

Eva and her friend crashed into him, and Eva squealed.

* * *

><p>Okay, subtlety was not actually Jack's strong point, Blaine eventually had to conclude.<p>

They'd finished catching up on the work, and Blaine had apologized and said he had to go, pulling out his wallet, and Jack had said not to be ridiculous, it was on Westman's, as Blaine had had to put up with Nadia, and that should by all rights entitle him to a free cruise or something.

Blaine had laughed and thanked him, and Jack had asked for his number, and if he wanted to go to dinner in a few weeks, when he got back from Paris. Only, Blaine had been starting to get up at the time, so Jack had reached forward to catch his wrist as he asked (a little pushily, he thought) making him sit back down reflexively.

Blaine was about to give him the "thanks but no thanks" speech when he heard a squeal, and turned around.

And he actually knew he was going crazy.

Because now he was fucking hallucinating his (ex) boyfriend in public places, and that was just great, wasn't it?

And then, a second later, he really hoped it was a hallucination, because there was a guy behind Kurt, and _did he have his hand on Kurt's waist? _He definitely did. He_ had his hand on Kurt's waist, _and that was not _in the least bit _appropriate_, _and_ why was Blaine not punching him, again?_

He saw Eva, but, as much as he loved her, he didn't really care. Because _some guy _who was _definitely not him _had his hand on Kurt in a proprietary manner, and the jealous monster in Blaine's chest was _Absolutely. Freaking. The. Hell. Out._

The guy was taller than him too. God, he hated him _so much_. What the hell did Kurt see in him, anyway?

He realized that Kurt, Jack, and now Eva were all staring at him, and then three things happened at once.

Kurt took off for the door like he was on fire (or, Blaine seethed, had been _caught_), his blue eyes huge, Eva stared at disappearing-Kurt, then at Blaine, sitting at the table with some other guy, jumping to her own conclusions, and the guy that Blaine loathed more than anything else in the entire world right now looked him up and down and told him he liked his shirt.

_You_, thought Blaine, _have got to be kidding me_.

"Blaine, what the fuck?"

This was from Eva, who looked a little murderous.

Blaine was so not in the mood. He stood up.

"'Blaine, what the fuck?' What the hell did _I _do?"

Eva just stared at him, seething, then looked pointedly at Jack.

Blaine blinked, then used his lawyerly prowess to work out why Kurt had probably gotten out of there quickly.

"Oh," he said.

"Did I miss something?" asked Jack with a raised eyebrow.

"That," Blaine bit out, "was my ex-boyfriend" - he still hated that term - "who, while I am spending Saturday morning working, is apparently_ dating again_."

"_Ex_-boyfriend?" Eva gasped.

"Working?" asked the guy that Blaine loathed, with a raised eyebrow.

"So that's why he hasn't been eating much at work, or talking to anyone..." Eva realized.

"Date? Who is he dating?" asked the guy who really needed to shut up, because Blaine was trying to process all this information.

But he had stopped being able to do that, because something important had just been said.

"Kurt hasn't been eating?" Blaine fixed his eyes on Eva, who shrugged.

"Not as much as usual. He kept saying he just wasn't hungry whenever we asked if he wanted to go out. And he's been working pretty late..."

_And I haven't been bringing him dinner_.

"I have to go," Blaine realized.

"Wait," said _really_ annoying guy. "Is Kurt _single_? Because I didn't know -"

Blaine made sure to accidentally push him into the wall a bit as he left.

* * *

><p>Of course, Kurt was long gone by the time Blaine got outside. He was seriously considering going over to Mercedes', or calling at least, because even if it wasn't any of his business anymore, Kurt needed to not work himself to death, and also know that Jack Westman was pretty much a non-entity as far as Blaine was concerned. He realized that the last part had no relevance to anything anymore, but if his reaction to the hand on Kurt's waist was anything like what Kurt had felt mistaking Jack for his date (honestly, who grabs someone's hand like that? Idiot.), then they needed to get that straight.<p>

Not the other stuff, Blaine remembered with a twinge, that was over. But that.

And he was going to make sure Kurt was eating. That was the important thing.

Before he could do this, however, his cellphone rang.

"Blaine, dear friend, forget something?"

Wes. David. Airport.

They had flown across the country to see him (and interfere sinisterly in his life)... the least he could do was get them to the damn airport on time.

"I'll be there in twenty."

* * *

><p>"So, Kurt thought you were on a date?" Wes asked.<p>

"I guess so," Blaine sighed, inwardly cursing New York traffic.

"Well... were you?"

He glared at his friend. "Of course I fucking wasn't. I told you, I had to work."

"On a Saturday morning?"

"Yes."

"Wow. That sucks," David contributed intelligently.

"Tell me about it. Hey, when you had dinner with Kurt and Mercedes..."

"Yeah..."

"How did he seem?"

David was firm. "I am totally not playing this game with you, Blaine."

"I'm not asking for my ego, jackass, I'm asking because..."

"Why?" Wes prompted. Blaine pursed his lips.

"Because I'm fucking worried about him, okay?"

There was silence in the car for a full minute.

"Broken," Wes told him simply. "He seemed broken. Just like you."

They were stopped at a red light, and he let his head fall forward onto the steering wheel. It was stupid to have a car in New York. It cost the earth to keep it there, and they – he - almost never used it. But they'd kept it anyway, because this was the car that Blaine had picked Kurt up in on their second date (Kurt had driven on their first). This was the car they'd made out in more times than he could count, pushing their curfew at Dalton, or risking waking their roommate by coming in too late in college, or staying out far too late when they had work in the morning. He _loved_ this car, which is why, when he felt his head touch the steering wheel, he let himself be a little bit broken. Not as broken as he actually was, just a little. For a minute.

"Blaine," Wes put his hand on his friend's back. "You want me to drive?"

He looked up. _Green light. Green means go_. "No," he responded dully. "I'm fine. Just tired. I'll call Mercedes after I drop you guys off, and have her tell Kurt. Then it'll all be done."

David and Wes exchanged a look.

"Blaine," David started, "I don't want you to crash and kill us all, but can I ask you a question?"

His entire body tensed. "What?"

"Do you think you and Kurt will ever be 'done' ?"

His grip tightened on the steering wheel. "I didn't, no. But things change."

Did they ever.

* * *

><p>Kurt was in their bedroom.<p>

He'd gone to Mercedes' first, but he'd lain down on the bed, and he suddenly couldn't stand the idea of all his stuff still being in his and Blaine's bedroom anymore, especially if Blaine was now fucking some other guy in it.

He tried not to dwell on that image or idea for very long, because every time it entered his mind he felt like his heart was being ripped from his chest and jumped on by someone in tacky six inch stilettos. But a perverse part of him kept calling it to mind. '_See_,' it said, '_you could have stopped this. There was so much you could have done. But you just couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you?_'

He silenced the voice, but couldn't help but wonder. _Had _Blaine had anyone back here? Wes and David were staying, so it was unlikely, but not impossible. Kurt had been gone for almost a month. And while part of him, the sane, logical part, told him that this wasn't some guy that would go out and pick someone up, this was _Blaine_, who wouldn't throw them, ten years of them, casually away like that, not ever, the other part pointed out that he had. They both had. Their last act as a couple had been to break themselves beyond repair.

Their bed was made with fresh sheets – he could smell the fabric softener, the one Blaine always had to call him about, because he got mixed up with the bottle, which was the same color as another brand, and it almost made him curl up with what used to be his pillow. His ex-pillow.

But if he got back in that bed, in _their _bed, the bed that was the first piece of furniture they'd owned as a couple, and had practically been the only thing in their first apartment, because they'd been students, and it was all they'd really needed, he knew he'd never be able to get out. And then Blaine would come back from his date – maybe even _with_ his date, and Kurt would be there, and -

Kurt had to sit down at the thought. He perched on the edge of the bed tentatively, on Blaine's side, and when it didn't eat him alive he let his head and arms fall forward onto his knees. He'd get the rest of his clothes packed up in a minute. He was just so tired of this – feeling this way. God, he hoped it would stop. What if it didn't - what if he actually felt like this forever?

It was a measure of the last ten years, of how much they'd meant to each other, how attuned they were that he knew Blaine was there a second before he turned his head. Leaning against the doorframe, a guarded look on his face, hands in his pockets, as though he wasn't sure if he should be there or not.

Kurt was, in a masochistic way, glad he was. This needed to be over, for good, and this was as good – no, as _adequate_ a time as there would ever be. But he didn't live here anymore, and he had to acknowledge that.

"I'm just going." He made to get up, expecting Blaine to vacate the doorway. Instead, he shrugged.

"It's your apartment too."

Kurt wasn't sure how to deal with that. So he changed the subject.

"I would have thought you'd still be at lunch..." _...or fucking some Gucci-wearing hot-shot lawyer in our bed._

He felt physically ill.

"I had to drop David and Wes off at the airport. Besides, I wasn't going to work all day."

"It's good you could get time off for lunch," Kurt bit out.

"It wasn't a date, Kurt," Blaine said softly, "it was business." It was said with gentleness, and that made Kurt insanely angry. How _dare_ he be so calm?

"Ah, yes, I should have surmised that from the extremely businessy way that you were _holding his hand._"

Those hazel eyes were just staring at him, filled with an infinite kind of sadness, and he hated it.

Blaine shrugged again.

"He asked for my number. I was about to say no when I saw you and..." his face clouded "..._that guy_." Finally, a reaction.

"What guy?"

"The one," Blaine practically spat, "who had his hands all over you."

Something clicked. "Eva's friend?"

He shrugged for a third time, and Kurt could have strangled him.

There was silence, and Kurt's ears were suddenly full of their last conversation in this room.

"_You know, if you really love me as much as you fucking say, this shouldn't be a big deal every single fucking time."_

_That was when he had said it. He had been so tired of having this same fight, so furious with his boyfriend, so done with this entire fucking thing -_

"_Well," he snarled without thinking, "I'm not sure I do – and do you know what, Blaine? The more times we have this fight, the less I'm sure I ever did to begin with."_

_Blaine had stepped back for a moment, as though he'd been slapped across the face. His eyes had widened as the words hit him, and Kurt was so close to apologizing, to taking it back, saying it was a lie, when hazel eyes narrowed and Blaine joined him in the land of saying whatever-the-hell-crossed-his-mind without thinking._

"_I see, well, if it's so fucking torturous to be here, then why don't you just leave? God knows it'd be nice not to have to pretend anymore."_

"_You're an asshole, and a coward, did you know that? Run from it, that's all you do! All your life, Blaine, run, run, run! Ignore it, and it'll go away. God, just looking at you makes me feel sick!"_

"_I'm not the one who won't fucking stand up for myself now -"_

"_You absolute and utter - what are you talking about, you hypocrite, you're practically -"_

"_I really cannot stand the sight of you right now! You know, I'm having difficulty remembering why the hell we're doing this!"_

"_Good. Because, like I said, I'm not sure I ever loved you anyway."_

"_Great, because, like I said, pretending I cared for all these years has been a fucking torture."_

_They'd fought a fair bit over ten years. They'd fought over money, furniture, families, clothes, what Kurt described as Blaine's tendency to flirt with anything that breathed, Kurt's inability to admit when he was wrong, Blaine's desire to run from whatever bothered him instead of talk about it..._

_But this was different. Because this time, Kurt left, lies still on his lips, as they were on Blaine's, trying not to believe that their words would be believed._

Kurt didn't realize he had closed his eyes until he opened them and saw that Blaine still hadn't moved.

"Kurt, are you eating?"

His head snapped up. "What?"

"You heard me."

"Of course I heard you, I just have no idea what you're talking about. Of course I'm _eating_, what kind of question is that?"

Blaine was studying him for signs of hesitation or deception, and, seeing none, seemed embarrassed.

"Eva said -"

"Eva presumed that I was a recovering alcoholic the first time we went out to lunch, on the grounds that I ordered a diet coke when she ordered a glass of wine. She is not the most reliable source."

"I know, but she said – she said you were working late -"

Kurt's mouth snapped shut. He didn't want to talk about work. "I've always worked late. I manage."

"Yeah, but I haven't been there to..." He trailed off, and their eyes met. Kurt could almost feel Blaine's lips on his face, the taste of red wine and that spicy, sweet sauce he insisted on making, even though he didn't like it very much, because Kurt loved it...the edge of Kurt's desk pressing into his back, papers pushed to the side so that Blaine could push him, lean him back for better, hotter, _oh-so-damn-good-more-please_ access. Hazel eyes were intently focused on him, and Kurt wanted very much for forever to be just like this.

And then he was back. And Kurt was relieved that Blaine hadn't been dating, and seemed to have been worried about him, but reminded himself before he could dwell any more on either of those things that Blaine's love life (god, how he loathed that phrase) was none of his business anymore, just as his eating habits were none of Blaine's. He stood up, deciding it was time to go.

"I appreciate the concern, but I'm really doing just fine, thanks." If only he actually felt the indifference that laced the lie. The walked to the door, and Blaine moved just enough that he didn't block his path.

"I'm glad," he said quietly. He didn't sound it.

Kurt walked out of their bedroom, but as he passed Blaine something happened. Blaine pulled his hand out of his pocket, in a reflexive, automatic action, and touched Kurt's hand. That was it. Only briefly, and then he snatched it back, blushing. God, Kurt had always loved the way his cheeks turned just that shade of pink.

"Sorry, I -"

Kurt tried not to care that his entire arm seemed to come alive at the contact – their first in weeks.

"It's fine."

He took three steps out of the room before Blaine spoke, the conflict evident in his voice.

"Kurt, I... I lied before, you know."

Kurt actually felt his stomach clench. As he stopped dead.

_He was on a date. I knew it._

He didn't turn around.

"It's fine, Blaine, just... let's let it be."

"No,' he insisted, "I can't... it isn't right to let that stand. I don't expect you to forgive me, but -"

Kurt turned slowly. "It really isn't any of my business."

He seemed surprised. "That I'm in love with you? I think it sort of is."

The air was sucked out of Kurt's lungs when he said it, just like always, only foreign this time. Painful. "What?"

"When we...I said – I said that I didn't think I'd ever been in love with you. Because you – I said it back." He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again they were a little bit fierce, but also tired. So very tired. "That was a lie, Kurt, a complete and utter lie – the worst I've ever told. I don't expect this to change any- I know it doesn't, but I couldn't- that...shouldn't stand. I... I couldn't let it."

"I.." What could you say to that? What was there to say?

"It's okay, Kurt. You don't have to say anything. I'll... I'm going to go – I'll let you..." He moved past Kurt, heading for the door. "I'll give you some ti-"

"Me too," Kurt finally managed, his exhale an immeasurable relief.

"I'm sorry, what?" Polite. Polite, polite, polite...

"When I said... I lied too. When I said that... it wasn't true. I always loved you. Always." _And I probably will for the rest of my miserable existence, so I hope that counts for something._

Blaine might have smiled a little, Kurt wasn't sure. "I think... thank you. I think... I think I knew that, I hoped I did, but I – I needed to hear it."

Kurt felt like he needed to explain. "I just... I saw what was happening to us, and it made me crazy. So I tried to make it – I think I thought that if I said it, it might make it true and then... it would hurt less. But it doesn't – didn't. And it was a lie. And you deserve to know that, Blaine, you deserve to know that I loved you – that I love you, even if..."

"If what?"

"If it doesn't make a difference anymore."

There was a pause. It was an important pause, and it took its time. When Blaine spoke his voice was calm and level as ever, but it was also more alive than Kurt had heard since he'd left.

"Does it?"

"Does it what?"

"Make a difference."

"To what?"

"What happens now."

"I don't... I don't know what you mean."

Blaine kept looking at him, unflinching. "Yes you do, Kurt. From here this goes one of two ways. I leave now, you pack, we tell our families and friends that we ended – my mother and Carole cry and we say – we tell them that we'll stay in touch, that we'll keep our promise to stay friends, but we don't, because it's too hard, and then I spend the next ten, or twenty, or thirty years living for your name being mentioned in passing by Wes, or David, or Mercedes, who will be very careful to not talk about either of us to the other because they think it will upset us, when actually just hearing your name, knowing you're happy, and alive, and doing something that you love, it will be a kind of... it will be a benediction. It will be the only thing keeping me going... forever."

Kurt was trying so hard to breathe. He really was. He was not going to cry. He was not. Because this was an important conversation, maybe his most important conversation ever, and he needed to not cry.

"Or?"

He saw Blaine close his eyes for a moment, gather his courage, and then focus intently. Kurt knew that intensity, the intimacy of that gaze, and he felt wrapped in it, protected, loved. And he wondered why he had ever, even for a second, believed that Blaine hadn't loved him. He knew he did. He knew it like he knew his name, knew that socks with sandals were a crime against fashion, knew that, even if he ended up packing and walking out the door for the final time that day, he would still be hopelessly in love with this person - the boy who had seen a new kid, and sung to him, and seen him cry, and been his friend, and written him a song he didn't tell him about because he was afraid he wasn't loved back – for the rest of his existence. He knew it like he knew he'd do all the things that Blaine had just described. He'd wait, hoping to hear the tiniest bit of news, because he'd always want – need - to know everything about Blaine's life, even if it didn't involve him, even if it caused him unimaginable pain. Always.

"Or," Blaine said shakily, "we sit down on the couch, in _our_ apartment, and I tell you how unbelievably in love with you I am, and hope that you want to hear it, and then... we talk about this."

Kurt exhaled, and it felt like his lungs were suddenly clear.

"I think," he said carefully, "I'd like that - the second one."

They were about a foot from one another by this point, and Kurt was reminded of their first kiss. Then, he'd touched Blaine's cheek, and the melody had stopped. He'd looked into the hazel eyes that drifted open, and had seen fear, uncertainty, hope, and the glint of something, the thing that had made him lean forward and kiss him, the thing that had given him courage. Then, he'd thought it was lust. Later, he'd known differently.

Blaine was giving him that same look now, as though he wanted to believe this was happening, but it had just been so long, and he'd felt so much, that he wasn't sure where to start, or what to believe.

Kurt knew that, because he knew his eyes were probably saying the same thing. Where to start?

Back then, ten years ago, Kurt had seen that look, and he had acted on it.

Now they were both seeing it.

So they did the only logical thing.

They both acted on it.

At the same moment that Blaine reached for Kurt's hand, Kurt let his other drift up to his best friend's cheek. Blaine leaned into it automatically, as instinctually as he exhaled, and he used the hand he was holding to pull them closer together. But he was still hesitant - they both were. Every action had a tentative subtext to it – an unspoken '_let me know if this is too much, because I want it all, and I won't be able to stop unless you tell me'._

"Oh my god_, _I missed this so much." And now Kurt was actually crying, and he couldn't even find it in his heart to mind, because Blaine was looking at him like that again, like he might just be the only thing that mattered in the whole world, and he closed his eyes, hoping that if this wasn't actually happening, if this was another dream, or a hallucination, then he'd just stay there, standing with Blaine in the middle of their living room.

And then he felt perfect, slightly chapped lips touch his temple softly.

And he was home.

"I love you..." His lips were on Kurt's forehead in a gentle, sweet caress. "I love you..." on his cheek, kissing the tears away, closing his eyes and letting them mix with his own before pulling back and looking him directly in the eyes. "I love you..." His voice was quiet, certain, and full. "And when I say that, I want you to be perfectly, absolutely crystal clear about what I mean. I love you. I started falling in love with you the second you took my hand on the staircase at Dalton, and I loved you when you stepped in front of Karosfsky to protect me, and the first time you sang for me, and I loved you more every single day, with every single text, or phone call, or smile... and the day when I sang to you, when we kissed for the first time, was the best day of my life, because I knew. I've loved you for forever, and I will love you for our forever, and absolutely nothing that you, or I, or anyone else says or does is going to change that, ever. I meant it every single time I said it, and when I didn't, every time I look at you I'm saying it somewhere in my mind, and it's something that I know, and feel, and can't do anything about, so you're just going to have to deal with it, Kurt, because it's a fact. I am actually, legitimately, ridiculously in love with you, in the totally cliché way that makes me talk too much, like now, for example, and write songs, and think about things that are so sappy it's embarrassing, so in love it is completely absurd, and it makes me very stupid sometimes, and even if you decide tonight, or next week, or in a year, or in ten years that you're sick of me, or you can't stand me, or you just want out, I'm still going to love you, because I'm as stubborn as you are, and I can't seem to stop myself, and I wouldn't, even if I could." He smiled and leaned his forehead against Kurt's, closing his eyes contentedly. "So there."

"Oh my god," breathed Kurt shakily, not moving an inch, "I think my heart is actually going to explode, and then I'll be dead, and it'll be because my boyfriend told me he loves me, and that is quite possibly the stupidest reason to die ever."

Kurt was nervous, immediately after the words fell from his lips, at the way the term had casually, familiarly rolled of his tongue, like it had been waiting there for weeks. But Blaine just laughed... and it was music. A breathy, tearstained, melodic laugh, the one that Kurt had missed like it was his own brand of oxygen. Their foreheads were still pressed together. "Don't die, please."

"Okay. I'll do what I can." There was a pause, and they just looked at each other.

"Fuck...I missed you."

Kurt brought his head back so they could see each other's eyes properly. "I love you too, you know. So much it actually kind of hurts to think about anything else right now."

Blaine lips twitched delightedly, and then he was serious. "When I saw you sing that song last night I thought I was going to drop dead."

Kurt was slightly incredulous. "When _you_ heard _me? _How about when – wait, you didn't, though. You weren't there."

"Yes," he corrected gently, kissing his palm. "I was."

Kurt raised an eyebrow in confusion, not letting himself get distracted by the way his hand now tingled. Much. "You'd left."

"I came back."

The words hit them both and they smiled. After a minute, Blaine looked nervous.

"Kurt?"

"Yes?"

"If we talk about everything... will you... will you move – will you come back? Please?"

His smile grew wider. "Absolutely."

He was nearly blinded by the answering smile that spread over his boyfriend's face.

"Hey, Kurt?"

"Still yes?"

"Can I... can I kiss you?"

It said a lot that he felt the need to ask, and Kurt's chest hurt a little.

"If you don't, I may actually just attack you."

His surprised smirk was a thing of utter and glorious beauty. "We can't have that." He paused. "Maybe later, though..."

Kurt blinked. "Blaine. Less talking."

"Right."

Kurt's hand had eventually come to rest on his shoulder, and they were still holding hands, Blaine having pulled their arms to his chest, so it seemed like the most natural thing in the world for Blaine to slip his other arm around his boyfriend's waist and sway a little.

"You know, I could serenade you. You do still make me feel like I'm living a -"

Kurt's lips got impatient. He didn't mean to be rude. Although, in all honesty, Blaine didn't seem to mind all that much.

Their lips touched gently, and Kurt felt Blaine exhale with satisfaction at the familiarity, like he was pulling on his favorite sweater, or taking a delicious sip of his first cup of coffee of the day, only better, because this was Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson Hamilton taking their new first sip, falling back into _them_. Kurt could taste the lemonade on his breath, and Blaine could tell he'd had a latte at work that morning, he could taste it on his lips, mixed with the flavor of the gum that Kurt probably had in his pocket right now, because he never went anywhere without it.

And all that was from the first tentative touch.

It was as natural as taking a breath, breaking the surface of the pool of misery that had been eating away at them, the way they knew exactly what to do. Kurt's free hand, the one Blaine wasn't holding, went to rest and wrap itself in dark curls, and Blaine's had no intention of ever leaving Kurt's hip. And when Kurt's tongue touched his boyfriend's lip, he actually _moaned_ at the rightness of what was happening, at the memory of the ten thousand kisses before it and the anticipation of the next hundred thousand. And then they were dancing, or their tongues were, and it was good, and right, and everything that home is supposed to be. The kiss went on, and it was desperate, filled with promises and apologies, admissions that this was all there should ever be.

Blaine pulled away briefly, his eyes totally alight. "Christ... I want to do that forever. I want to go back in time and do it for ten years, all over again, so we can have more."

Kurt just kept eye contact. "Blaine..."

"Yes?"

"Can we sit down?"

He looked slightly ashamed that he had forgotten his manners. "Of course." Kurt led him across the room and they settled on the couch. Neither of them let go of the other's hand, and they both looked a little uncertain of what should come next.

"I really -"

"It isn't -"

They looked at each other and laughed. Together. And then they fell silent.

"Kurt?"

"Yeah?"

He looked embarrassed. "Would you like to... can I just... hold you for a bit? Before anything else, I mean." He hastened to clarify. "Like, talking, I mean, I don't want you to-"

"Yes, please."

Blaine wrapped an arm around him, pulling him close, and they made themselves comfortable. He unbuttoned the collar on his shirt, causing Kurt to lick his lips unconsciously, which in turn caused Blaine to have to kiss him again. And they stayed there for a while, together and quiet.

Contentment, exhaustion, and relief eventually lulled them to sleep there, curled up on their couch, and when Blaine woke, four hours later, to the feel of Kurt's lips brushing gently over his temple, carefully, as though almost in awe and worship, he opened his eyes, and they both knew that talking could wait, and that they weren't tired anymore.

So they went to bed.

* * *

><p>Blaine and Kurt had bickered for weeks about the curtains in their bedroom. When they'd first moved into their new apartment, Blaine had argued that the material Kurt wanted was too sheer, and neither of them would ever be able to sleep because ambient light would constantly blind them. Kurt had said Blaine was full of it, and the material was perfect, and, anyway, it went with the bedspread. He worked in fashion, he should know.<p>

Blaine had asserted that color coordination was not the issue, and there was no point in having a bedroom if they couldn't ever fall asleep in it.

Kurt had put the curtains up anyway.

Blaine had been very, very annoyed. He'd asked whether there was any point in even talking about it if Kurt wasn't ever going to listen to him anyway.

Kurt had been distracted by the way he was running his hands through his unkept hair, and had sort of jumped him, which had effectively ended that argument.

And that night, after Kurt had fallen asleep, Blaine had lain there, watching errant moonbeams illuminate parts of the room, parts of his favorite person in the whole world - skin, and lips, and eyes that he could look at forever and never get bored of - and he'd decided that the curtains weren't so bad after all. They weren't perfect, but maybe perfect wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

* * *

><p>He was thinking that now, months later, as the digital alarm clock on the bedside table read 3:49am, and Kurt was nestled comfortably next to him, the adorable, sleeping almost-little-spoon (Blaine got the irony, thanks). He couldn't sleep. He couldn't sleep because if he did, he was afraid he'd wake up and he wouldn't be here. He'd be in the guest room, or on the couch, or in a dorm room at NYU, or, worst of all, in the dorm room he had shared with Wes for part of his senior year, before Kurt had transferred. And he didn't want that. He wanted to be here, awake, watching the glow of the moonlight kiss Kurt's skin, giving in to the urge to follow it with his lips occasionally, and just... being <em>them <em>– this not perfect, a little dysfunctional, indescribably wonderful _thing_ that they were, had been, would always be, because Blaine was never ever going to let anything like the last few weeks happen again.

Kurt was the only person whose skin he wanted to kiss like this, the only person whose voice he would never get tired of hearing, the person he wanted in his bed, in his heart, in his eyes, in his mind, in his mouth, in...

As enticing as it was, he didn't let that train of thought go any further. They were cuddling, and Kurt was asleep, after all. Blaine was still a gentleman. Besides, he was comfortable, leaning up with his forearm on the pillow and his other arm securely fastened around his boyfriend, who was more than a little bit on top of him as he leaned instinctively back towards him in sleep, his head tilted into the pillow, showing off the graceful sweep of his neck, which Blaine just had to kiss. It was necessary.

He really wanted his guitar right now. But it was probably still in the living room, and no matter how much he wanted to play, it was not _nearly_ enough to make him leave their bed. Possibly ever.

Besides, Kurt would wake up. He wasn't a heavy sleeper. And then Blaine would be revealed as the creeper he was for staring at his sleeping boyfriend. Not that this hadn't already come up in the last ten years. But still. The point was, he was not moving. Nu-uh.

A tune found it's way into his head and he smiled as he remembered Kurt's 18th birthday, when he'd flown back from college specifically to surprise him with the concert tickets he'd told his boyfriend he hadn't been able to get, which had caused thinly veiled disappointment to shine from blue eyes over 500 miles away. And that night, after he'd surprised him, when they'd been curled up, falling asleep, Blaine had been mentally flipping through the band's back catalogue to find the right song for that moment. So many could apply to them, but he'd still quickly, almost immediately, known which one it should be.

But he'd been eighteen years old, and scared that the intensity of the lyrics his heart was holding onto as truth were too much, too soon. They hadn't been together that long, really, in the grand scheme of things. And although Blaine had known, even at that age, that the way he felt about Kurt wasn't just some phase that he'd outgrow, that this was _it_ for him, the real thing, it was still scary as hell. Because lying in the dark, with his arms around his stubborn, intelligent, wonderful boyfriend, who was exactly what he needed and wanted, he could see them. Five years down the line. Ten. Twenty. As many as Kurt would give him. This was his forever. It was exciting, and wonderful, and terrifying as all hell. So Blaine had stayed quiet, held his boyfriend a little closer, and fallen asleep, dreaming about the future – _their_ future.

Now, years later, he wasn't scared anymore. Not of them. He still held Kurt closer, and his voice was quiet but certain when he started to sing. They had so many songs, for so many moments. This one was for now.

He let his index finger trace slow circles on Kurt's shoulder, kissing it softly.

"_You push me, I don't have the strength to_

_Resist or control you._

_So take me down..._

_Take me down._

_You hurt me, but do I deserve this?_

_You make me so nervous,_

_Calm me down..._

_Calm me down."_

He let his hands just enjoy the softness of his boyfriend's skin. God, he'd forgotten how good this felt. Or, rather, he'd tried to forget. Because it had hurt too much to remember.

"_Wake you up in the middle of the night to say_

_I will never walk away again._

_I'm never gonna leave this bed."_

Kurt leaned a little bit further into him, tightening Blaine's arms as though they were a blanket, and Blaine thought for a moment he was awake. He fell silent, but his best friend's breathing went back into the calm rhythm of sleep, and he pressed a lingering kiss to his mussed hair, loving everything about this moment, about them, and wantingjust_ this_ forever. He started singing again, picking the song back up after a long pause.

"_So come here, and never leave this place._

_Perfection of your face_

_Slows me down..._

_Slows me down."_

His hand found Kurt's hand and they intertwined themselves, seemingly of their own accord, fitting just as perfectly as they ever had, only more so, Blaine thought. He knew Kurt, if he ever heard that, would snort that the entire evolutionary purpose of hands, and fingers, was that they could grip things, so hands fitting together was pretty logical. But Blaine knew better. Kurt's hand fit in his like no one else's did... or would. Ever.

"_So fall down, I need you to trust me._

_Go easy, don't rush me._

_Help me out, why don't you help me out?_

_Wake you up in the middle of the night to say_

_I will never walk away again._

_I'm never gonna leave this bed._

_Oh, you say go, it isn't working,_

_And I say no, it isn't perfect, so I'll stay instead._

_I'm never gonna leave this bed."_

This was it. This was right. Right there, right then, was what life should always be. And Blaine was absolutely certain that he would give anything, _everything _he had or could ever haveto keep it just like this.

"_Take it, take it all, take all that I have..._

_I'd give it all away just to get you back._

_And fake it, fake it, I'll take what I can get._

_Knocking so loud, can you hear me yet?_

_Try to stay away but you can't forget."_

He punctuated each of the next few lines with a soft kiss to his hair, his arm, his cheek, his shoulder... he let his tongue trace the outline of his boyfriend's collar bone, in delicious circles of pure sensation, only stopping when he felt Kurt shiver a little. He immediately pulled the blankets closer around them, moving his free hand gently on the sleeping arm to warm him. He let his voice come back in when it seemed Kurt was comfortable again.

"_Wake you up in the middle of the night to say_

_I will never walk away again._

_I'm never gonna leave this bed._

_You say go, it isn't working,_

_And I say no, it isn't perfect,_

_So I'll stay instead._

_I'm never gonna leave this bed."_

He pressed another kiss to Kurt's shoulder, whispering the last words in his ear, meaning them all, even if his sleeping boyfriend couldn't hear them. He hoped he knew.

"_Take it, take it all, take all that I have._

_Take it, take it all, take all that I have."_

He paused as he repeated the last lines into Kurt's shoulder, his lips inches from the skin he was kissing. Shoulder, neck, ear, temple...

"Mmm...sounds good. You promise?" a sleepy voice smiled.

He froze. "How long have you been awake?"

"The whole time," Kurt smirked, turning so they could see each other's faces. "Since you kissed me on the neck...before."

Blaine blushed. "Oh. Sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

He paused. "I'm not actually sure."

"Well, then..." Kurt squeezed that hand that was still intertwined with his, and leaned in, his expression pleased and sincere "...I'm in."

"In for what?"

"For forever. Here." He leaned forward for a long, lingering kiss, then his face relaxed and he smirked. "We may have to get snacks delivered, though. We'll probably living off of chinese food, if neither of us are going to cook."

"Sounds good," Blaine smiled. "We'll have all those carbs to work off..."

"I suspect we'll manage." Kurt eyed him, wrapped in their sheets. "Gotta keep those abs looking good, haven't we?...Sacrifices must be made..." He let out a dramatic sigh. "I will step up to help."

Hazel eyes danced merrily. "I missed this."

"Me too." Kurt's voice dropped in volume. "I'm... glad I didn't have to sleep here alone. I wouldn't have been able to do it."

"I couldn't."

"What?"

"I didn't sleep here. I had... slept in the guest room, or on the couch... since you left."

Kurt knew it wasn't funny in the least, but he couldn't help smiling a little. "Really?"

"Really. It's our bed. I just... I couldn't."

He covered his face with his hands. "It is so stupid that that is making me cry."

Blaine pulled them away. "Hey..." He kissed him, moving so that he was leaning over his embarrassed boyfriend. "I mean it, you know. Never."

"I know. I do too."

They smiled at each other for a few seconds, Blaine bit his lip to keep from laughing in relief that they were there again, finally. Then he snickered.

"What?"

"Nothing," he smirked, "I'd just... I'd almost forgotten how cute you are when you're all sleepy and rumpled."

Kurt snorted and rolled them over so he had Blaine pinned to the bed. "I'll show you sleepy..." He ran his hand down his boyfriend's body slowly, earning a shiver of desire. "See how you like it...You try pretending to be asleep through that...making me _shiver._.."

"You could have told me you were awake," he reasoned, finding it a little difficult to focus, because his boyfriend's hands were wandering.

"You would have stopped singing."

Blaine looked up at his adorable, stubborn, intelligent, decidedly imperfect boyfriend, who he loved with so much of his heart that none was left to protest – Shakespeare really did know what he was talking about, he decided.

"Never," he promised.

* * *

><p>Blaine's phone rang at 9:37am. It woke them both, and Blaine stared at it for a moment. Kurt looked at him, and tried very hard to smile.<p>

"It could be work. You should check."

Blaine kissed him, turned it off, and threw it vaguely in the direction of the door.

* * *

><p>At 9:54 Kurt's cell phone rang. Kurt stopped what he was doing – which happened to be kissing his way down Blaine's chest – and looked at his boyfriend, who pretended not to be extremely disappointed when he picked up on the fourth ring.<p>

"Hello? Yes, it is... No, I'm sorry, I can't... Well, I'm very sorry about that. Actually, that's something I'd like to discuss with you. I'm afraid I'm going to have to give my two weeks notice... Yes, I'm sure... I'm sure we will... Yes, tomorrow. No, I – _Goodbye_, Lana."

He tossed the phone onto the floor, then turned back to his boyfriend, whose eyes were shining with excitement.

"Did you really just do that?"

"Yes, I really did." Blaine grabbed and kissed him just as panic set into his features. He pulled away. "Oh my god, Blaine, I just quit my job. I'm unemployed in two weeks. Oh my god..."

Blaine wrapped his arms around him and pulled him back down so he was lying across his chest, and kissed him on the top of the head. "I know. And it's a good thing. You hated it, Kurt. This is a great chance for you to do what you want. Come on, babe... look at me... you know that's what you've wanted to do for months."

Kurt brought his eyes up reluctantly. "I know. You're right. And after yesterday..."

"What happened yesterday? I mean, aside from some_ really_ good things later in the day. And night. And morning."

"Not now. I'll – I'll tell you at dinner." He saw reluctance in his eyes and kissed him. "I promise."

Blaine pouted slightly. "We're going to dinner?"

"We do have to eat sometime, you know. Strawberries and leftovers at 2am does not constitute a healthy diet. Speaking of which, it's Sunday. Aren't you going running?"

"I... I haven't been running as much."

"Why not?"

He blushed. "It was...difficult to come home, and not have you waiting for me, so that we could..."

"...take a shower?" Kurt supplied with a sad, understanding smile.

"Yeah."

"You should go," he said. "It makes you happy. I'll be here when you get back... And then we'll eat - I thought you were concerned about my eating habits."

He grinned. "I suppose. We have to celebrate. Although, now I feel like a jerk. Quitting, huh? Always have to one up me..."

Kurt smirked and kissed him on the nose. "Always."

"Good." He pulled him close again, and let his hands begin to wander.

Kurt stilled them for a second. "I need you to be happy too, you know. That's why I was so – I mean... that's the reason I was..."

"I know. We're both really, really stupidly in love. That's why that happened."

"It's also why we're here now," Kurt smiled, releasing his wrists.

Blaine grinned. "So true..." He resumed.

"Hey... mmmm... Blaine?"

"Mmmmhmmm?"

"Would you like to back me?"

"Depends. Is that code? Or a euphemism? Because there are lots of things I would like to do to you. And I really, honestly think we should take the time, as a couple, to explore them. Are you free for the next year or so? It might take longer. Best block out a few years. Maybe forty? Possibly fifty. Best to be safe. Seventy."

"_Blaine. _Pay atten – _oh,_ _fuck, yes -_ _Blaine. _Stop it."

"Sorry. My fault. You taste really good, you know. I missed you. What's up?"

"You are a hugely distracting person."

"I'll take that as a compliment, I think." He'd missed everything about them, but one of the things he'd missed most was this. Flirting, banter, and knowing that this was them. Snappy comebacks and longing looks, lingering kisses and great conversation. "Something about backing? And not in the fun way, apparently?"

"If I... if I decided to start designing for a bit... would you back me? As an investment?"

He was serious immediately. Kurt loved that.

He didn't love the answer quite as much.

"Me? Of course not."

Kurt tried, but he couldn't stop the hurt from showing all over his face. He'd just quit his job, and they'd just gotten back together (and oh, boy, had they) and now here he was, in bed with his boyfriend, and – Blaine saw his face and grabbed his hand.

"Kurt, _wait_. You don't understand. _I _don't have to back you. The money, it isn't _mine. _I've told you a million times. It's ours. It's _yours_. Invest it – us - in you. I can't think of anything better." He grinned. "I'm already pretty invested in you." He shrugged. "Or burn it. Whatever you like." He seemed to reconsider this, and looked slightly concerned. "Actually, don't burn it, because that would be bad for the environment, probably. "

Kurt kissed him. It was necessary. "You are ridiculous."

"I feel like we've had this conversation before. You say that a lot."

"That's because it's true most of the time."

"Kurt. Seriously. You _know_ I've wanted you to do this forever. Courage, right?" He took his boyfriend's hand and kissed his wrist. "This is awesome."

Kurt studied him, smiling, but only a little. "What about you?"

Blaine sighed. "I'm not going to quit." His boyfriend's face started to turn to stone, and he couldn't stand it. "No, Kurt, it's not that -"

"I understand, Blaine. I do. It's fine. Courage is a one way street, I guess. We should get up." He started to look for his clothes, and Blaine practically threw himself across the bed in an effort to make him _actually_ understand.

"Kurt, listen to me! I'm not quitting... yet. But I am going to cut back my hours. No more weekends, I promise. And I'm going to call Mark. He's been talking since law school about setting up a practice, and with the networking we've both done... well, it might work. Sometime in the future. Not immediately. And... I kind of started writing again. For me. I think I'll keep doing it." He looked at Kurt a little sheepishly. "I mean...if you think it's a good idea. You were right about that, what I said." His eyes were pleading. "All of that...it is what I wanted."

Kurt took his hand again. "I think that'll be fantastic."

Blaine brightened. "Good. Then can we discuss this whole exploring thing? Because I really think you should let me-"

"You know," Kurt interrupted, "I missed you like hell, but sometimes you talk too much."

"You love it."

"Yeah... I do."

"You know, I really think that -"

So Kurt shut him up the simplest way ten years together had taught him.

With his lips. And tongue. And hands. And everything else he could think of.

* * *

><p>"David," Wes declared into the phone at 10pm PST on Sunday, "I am worried. Blaine is not picking up his phone."<p>

"He's probably asleep. You know, like I was. Before you called in complete disregard of both human decency and time zones."

"I've been trying to call him all day, and his phone keeps going to voicemail. I'm concerned."

"I'll try calling. What else do you want me to do?"

"I don't know... panic with me?"

"Calm down. I'll call you back."

Fifteen minutes later Wes' phone buzzed. It was a text from Blaine.

'_Go away, Wes, unless you're dead or dying. I'm busy._'

Wes was slightly incensed.

_'Oh, really? What's so important?'_

Two minutes later he got a picture message.

And he shut the hell up.

* * *

><p><em>[Still to come: epilogue...]<em>


	4. Chapter 4: Epilogue

_[A/N: The link to the song from the last chapter was one that led to an altered version of the song for the first twelve hours it was posted. This has since been corrected, so if you would like to "hear" the scene at the pace it was intended, the link is in my profile. Also, Kurt's song from chapter two is now linked in CD quality (and sounds much better). The links for songs in this chapter follow them on my profile.]_

* * *

><p>"Knock knock. Surprise?" Kurt smiled before he turned around to see the sight he'd secretly been hoping to for weeks. Blaine was peeking around the door to the offices where Kurt was seated at his desk. It was 8:30 on Wednesday night and he had been the only one there for hours – Lana, while understanding fairly quickly that if she didn't drop the designs she'd stolen he (or rather, Blaine) would cause her all kinds of legal problems, seemed to be intent on milking his last two weeks for all they were worth. Blaine had had to work late on Tuesday, but they had both gone in late the next morning to make up for it, so Kurt hadn't expected to see him. In fact, this was the first time he'd come to visit at work since before their fight. Kurt pressed pause on his ipod, which was plugged into the radio and had been playing quietly in the background.<p>

"I wasn't expecting you."

"I know. Hence the 'surprise' element of my greeting." He grinned, stepped into the doorway, and pulled a paper bag and a wine bottle from behind his back. "Dinner?"

He gestured to a sandwich on his desk. "I do have food, but don't go, please."

He crossed the room, and stared at the sandwich incredulously. "That is not food. That is plastic-wrapped plastic substitute with a filling of plastic-y grossness." He grinned again, setting the bottle of wine down and opening the bag. "I made mushroom chicken."

"You made it?"

"Well, I ordered it. And I made you soup to go with it. That counts."

Kurt leaned his head up to reach for a kiss. "I missed your cooking and take-out ordering skills."

He obliged, leaning against the desk to capture his seated boyfriend's lips. "I missed a great number of your skills. And also the way you consume food." He winked, then nodded toward the desk as he took out the food. "How long?"

Kurt winced apologetically. "An hour? I'm sorry, I know we said that -"

Blaine handed him a fork. "It's all good. I can wait. You waited up for me last night."

"Well, you sort of made it up to me."

He smirked. "I always pay my debts. Besides, only a week and a half and you'll be free of the evil harpy. I'm ordering champagne already, and making dinner reservations... which, I should let you know right now, I am totally okay with us missing, if it's for the right reasons."

Kurt took a bite of mushroom sauce, and made a noise that Blaine could only describe as sinful.

"You cannot do _that _and then expect me to eat food like a normal human being," he complained, sitting on the edge of the desk, moving papers and folders into their appropriate places out of habit to make room.

Kurt blinked innocently. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Did you bring that wine for decoration, or can I have a glass?"

He rolled his eyes and opened the bottle, taking two plastic cups from the bottom drawer of the desk, where they had been stashed months ago for exactly that purpose. "And here I was trying to be subtle about plying you with alcohol." He handed the glass over and poured one for himself, holding it up to touch them together. "To..."

"To this." Kurt decided. "Just this, just us. Forever."

He smiled, and it was almost a caress. "I'll drink to that."

They did, and for the next twenty minutes they ate and talked while Kurt got some work done. Then Blaine turned on his own ipod and cued it up. "Dance with me."

Kurt looked up from the review he was writing. "What?"

His boyfriend took his pen, and pulled him up, so that he was standing in front of him as he sat on the edge of the desk. "Dance with me."

"I really should..." ..hazel eyes smoldered at him. "Okay. But if it plays something depressing then I may leave you again."

"Don't worry, I have excellent taste in music. That's how I seduced you in the first place. The power of Katy Pe-"

"Oh, we are so not having this conversation again. For the last time, that was not-"

"Kurt." He kissed him on the forehead. "Less talking, more dancing." He pressed play, and pulled his boyfriend away from the desk, wrapping his arms around him, as the opening notes to _Close Your Eyes – _The Dells version, obviously - filled the room. They both smiled as their bodies fit together, arms and hands finding their familiar places.

_Close your eyes (close your eyes), _

_Take a deep breath (Ahhh! ) _

_Open your heart (open your heart), _

_and whisper (I love you, I love you) _

_Tell me you love me (you love me) _

_You love me (you love me), you love me _

_You love me, you love me... _

_Hold me tight (hold me tight), _

_Don't say goodnight. _

_We have time (lots of time) _

_Everything's gonna be alright (gonna be alright) _

_Tell me you love me (you love me) _

_You love me (you love me), you love me _

_You love me, you love me..._

"You do realize, we are acting out about twenty different clichés right now..." Kurt pointed out, as they swayed. He didn't sound especially sorry.

"I'm okay with that." Blaine pressed their cheeks together_._

"Hey, Blaine," Kurt murmured in his ear. "Mmm?"

"I love you."

"Yeah, you do. Subtle hint, no?" A lingering kiss to the cheek. "Love you too."

And then they didn't need to talk. Their cheeks were pressed together, eyes closed, and they were hearing the words, hearing each other, the familiar sound of their breath mixing, the music there, but so much less important than their skin touching, arms around each other, heartbeats quickened.

_Close your eyes (close your eyes), _

_Take a deep breath (Ahhh... ) _

_Open your heart (open your heart), please whisper (I love you, I love you) _

_Tell me you love me (never let me go) _

_Oh, you love me (never let me go), you love me _

_Oh, yeah, why don't you open your eyes?_

_Let me in._

_Close your eyes, (let's pretend)_

_Close your eyes, (hold me near)_

_Don't need lines (what I want to hear)_

_Why don't you love me?..._

Their lips were together as the song ended, and they'd stopped swaying. The ipod clicked onto the next song on the playlist. _Teenage Dream._

Kurt laughed and pulled away slightly. "You have got to be kidding me. What is this, your seduction set?"

"Oh, yeah. Works every time." Blaine seemed distracted by his current task of kissing every single inch of Kurt's skin. "Why," he smirked, gripping his boyfriend's shirt and propelling him backwards towards the desk, "do I need a playlist?"

His boyfriend rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to be walked back until he was half sitting on the edge. "You're so lucky you're easy on the eyes."

"I know, right?"

His face softened as Blaine's hand came up to his cheek.

And then Kurt could taste the red wine on both their breath, feel the edge of his desk pressing into his lower back, Blaine's hands on him, holding him close, but leaning him back so that he was at the best angle to reach as much of him as possible – Blaine enjoyed their height difference, he knew, but he also seemed to have a kind of thing for leaning Kurt backwards over things... this he had discovered fairly shortly into their relationship. But he couldn't really think about that now, because they tasted so good together, and there was a stapler pressing into his back, and he totally did not care because his boyfriend's tongue was doing marvelous things, and this was just like college, just like high school, just like this morning when they'd woken up early, and Blaine had decided to call in and take the morning off because the way Kurt was looking at him over breakfast would be detrimental to his sanity if he left before that smirk had been entirely wiped from his face.

They managed to make it to the couch, but not before nearly breaking the piano (It was in the way, okay? And those legs really should be able to hold more weight than that). Then they'd gone for coffee, because Kurt had complained that Blaine couldn't just wear him out, then expect him to create a fashion empire on an empty stomach.

Blaine bought him a cookie and a mocha. Because he was a gentleman.

The cookie was good, but Kurt decided that night, practically horizontal on the desk by this point, that this was much better.

They didn't end up leaving until 2am, and when they did, they decided they wanted to order more chinese food to pick up on the way (some of it hand ended up on the floor. They couldn't find it in their hearts to be especially sorry, considering how it had gotten there). As Kurt was packing up, Blaine was on the phone to the restaurant, placing their order. When it came time to pay, he reached for his pocket, then realized his wallet was next to Kurt on the desk.

"Hey, can you hand me my credit card?"

Kurt picked it up and slid it open, handing him the shiny plastic. As he did, something fell out of the wallet, on to the desk. He picked it up curiously and then smiled at his boyfriend, who made eye contact and winked.

It was an old gum wrapper.

* * *

><p>They'd sat down and actually worked out when their anniversary technically was now. Because they were dorks like that. They'd still celebrate the anniversary of their first date anyway, but they wanted to know. They weren't going to pretend that the last few weeks hadn't happened, because the outcome was too important, too powerful. They'd gained too much – or perhaps just enough.<p>

So on the day that marked them having been together for precisely ten years, about three weeks after karaoke incident, they both took the day off – Blaine from work, Kurt from planning and plotting with Mercedes and Eva, who had taken the news of Kurt's quitting as a sign that she should quit too – and spent it together. And, okay, they spent the day cuddling on the couch, making out like teenagers, and watching _Torchwood_ and _I Love Lucy _reruns (and also taking a long, leisurely shower because, as Kurt pointed out to a very distracted Blaine, one could never be too clean), and did not actually end up leaving their apartment until about 4pm, when they went for the – cliché - romantic walk in Central Park. But that was not the point. Blaine cooked, and after dinner he asked what Kurt wanted to do for the rest of the night.

Kurt studied him for a moment, then looked towards the bedroom door pointedly. Blaine laughed.

"Not that that isn't an excellent idea, and something that had definitely crossed my mind, but we should probably come up for air for a little while."

It did not look like Kurt was a huge fan of this idea. Blaine fixed him a drink without breaking eye contact, and brought it over to him on the couch. He was thinking. "Hey, babe?"

Kurt took a sip. "Mmmm?"

"Want to go to karaoke tonight?"

He nearly dropped the glass. "What?"

"I was just wondering..."

"I heard you. Are you sure? The last time wasn't so..."

"The last time sucked. Which is why we should go tonight."

"You can serenade me here..." he pointed to the piano.

"But there aren't dozens of strangers. Where's the fun in that?"

"As long as..." Blaine couldn't hear the rest of the sentence. It was mumbled.

"What did you say, love?"

Kurt looked at him nervously. "As long as you don't sing that song again, because this time I will actually cry in public, and it will be all your fault."

It was said with an edge of humor, but the sincerity behind the words, and the worry in Kurt's eyes, just about broke his heart. He took his hand immediately and scooted closer, planting a series of kisses on his forehead, his eyes, his cheeks. "Baby, you know I wouldn't. Not ever again. Fuck, I'm so sorry about that, Kurt. I was going a little crazy, and then I saw you, and -"

Kurt put a finger to his lips and Blaine fought the urge to suck on it. Because this was a serious it shouldn't matter that Kurt's fingers smelled like them, and they looked delicious.

"I know. We were crazy. It's okay."

"You don't ever have to hear it again, I promise."

"No! I mean... you should still do it sometime. It's really good. Just… not there... right now."

Blaine squeezed his hand. "Don't worry. I have a few songs in mind. Does this mean we're going?"

"Yeah," he smiled, "it does."

Blaine stood up and pulled his boyfriend towards the door, only pausing to grab their coats.

Kurt would be lying if he said he didn't get a little bit panicky at the sight of the stage. It was only the fact that Blaine was right next to him, holding his hand tightly, that stopped him from hyperventilating himself into some kind of fit. But Blaine was with him, and he snagged them a table, signing himself up to sing (Kurt hadn't decided yet) and ordering them drinks, and Amy, who was at the piano, saw the two of them, waved to Kurt, and then grinned as she saw them holding hands. Blaine checked that Kurt wanted his usual drink – which he loved, that he still didn't just assume, even though he totally knew, and they sat there for a few songs holding hands and making snarky comments about the performers.

Some guy who should never have been allowed near a guitar went onstage, and caused Kurt to order another round of drinks, and just as he started singing Amy appeared at their table.

"Hi, Kurt," she grinned and nodded to Blaine. "Kurt's boy-toy."

"I also go by Blaine," he laughed, switching the hand he was holding Kurt's with briefly, so he could offer one to Amy, who shook it.

"Very nice to meet you. Amy. I'm glad everything worked out."

"So are we," Blaine smiled. "Join us for a drink? We just ordered, and this guy doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon, unfortunately." He gestured to the stage with his and Kurt's linked hands, as Kurt looked at him adoringly. Amy thought she might actually die from the cuteness. She pulled a small box out of her pocket.

" 'Fraid I'm on the clock, but thanks. I've been hoping you'd stop by... I just wanted to tell you, Kurt, that my mom liked your idea, and she started selling her stuff online. She asked me to give you these, for encouraging her. I hope one of your friends likes them."

"Oh, you don't have to -"

"Yes, I do." She handed him the box and a business card. "And if you want any more custom made, there's her card... my number is on the back, too. Really, thanks. I'd better go, but I'll see you onstage. Have fun!" She practically skipped back up to the piano, and Kurt turned to Blaine.

"Can we keep her?"

"I'll think about it." He gestured to the box. "What's that?"

Kurt opened it and smiled. "Mercedes' birthday present."

Blaine looked over his shoulder. "They're nice." He took a sip of his drink and mused quietly "... I wonder if she does rings..."

Kurt opened his mouth, but no sound came out. What did _that_ mean?

Then the stupid announcer called Blaine's name.

(Because he was stupid, and had the worst timing of any human being ever. In case you didn't get that.)

Blaine kissed Kurt on the cheek. "My moment to show off for you. Be right back."

"You don't need to show off for me," Kurt scoffed. His boyfriend just winked and walked up to the stage. When he got there he whispered something in Amy's ear, and she vacated the piano with a smile in Kurt's direction.

Kurt, for his part, was trying very hard to remember that this was not like the last time he was here, that this was their anniversary, and he was here _with Blaine_. Who was going to sing for him. And was sitting down at the piano and grinning into the microphone, which he'd set down on top, like he'd won the lottery.

God, that smile was still ridiculously, heartbeat-stealingly sexy, even after ten years.

"Hi, guys. I'm Blaine, and it's my boyfriend and my ten year anniversary today -"

There was some applause, and a few wolf whistles, one from Amy. Blaine acknowledged all of this with an even wider smile. "Thanks, guys. Anyway, ten years is a really long time, and I want to sing this song, well, because it's... it's right. It's - and because..." he shrugged sheepishly and looked directly into deep blue eyes, "well, I just... I love you, Kurt."

He turned his attention to the keys and began to play, and the entire audience was looking between Kurt and Blaine, most with indulgent smiles on their faces (and a few not. But those weren't bothering him just then). Because that was what Blaine did to an audience. That was why he was such an amazing performer, and lawyer, and could pull out the puppy dog eyes on Kurt in a heartbeat. He radiated sincerity. He was just sweet... and gorgeous.

And he was all Kurt's. And Kurt was all his.

Kurt liked that idea a lot.

And Blaine opened his mouth to sing, his fingers lighting on the keys like they were simply an extension of his hands, as always, and Kurt still loved the idea, but he found it kind of hard to concentrate, on account of the fact that he had recognized the introduction, and his boyfriend was evidently planning to freaking serenade him with _For The First Time. _His voice was soft, and as beautiful as ever, and Kurt sort of resigned himself to coherent thought being a thing of the past.

Also, he was probably going to cry.

"_She's all laid up in bed with a broken heart,_

_While I'm drinking Jack all alone in my local bar._

_And we don't know how – how we got into this mad situation, _

_Only doing things out of frustration. _

_Trying to make it work but, man, these times are hard."_

His fingers were quick, and soft, and Kurt could feel them in his, on his cheek, his arm, and as he watched he was listening to the lyrics, reflecting on what they would have meant two months ago, as just words, and how much they meant now, as truth.

"_She needs me now but I can't seem to find the time._

_I've got a new job now on the unemployment line._

_And we don't know how – how we got into this mess_

_Is it god's test? _

_Someone help us cause we're doing our best._

_Trying to make it work but, man, these times are hard."_

Blaine looked directly at his boyfriend to sing the chorus for him, just him, and it was one of the most intimate moments of Kurt's life.

"_But we're gonna start by drinking old cheap bottles of wine _

_Sit talking, up all night,_

_Saying things we haven't for a while, a while, yeah... _

_We're smiling but we're close to tears..._

_Even after all these years, _

_We just now got the feeling that we're meeting_

_For the first time."_

Kurt smiled, and Blaine winked, turning back to the keys.

Amy appeared with two glasses of champagne, handing one to Kurt and putting the other on the table next to him. "Blaine asked me if I'd grab those for you," she explained, nodding towards the stage, where Blaine was playing the intricate piano arrangement like it was scales, singing the backing vocals in a gorgeous falsetto. "He is so good. Who is this arrangement by?"

"You didn't have to, but thanks," he smiled, glancing at his absorbed boyfriend. "And I don't know. It's probably The Script's, but he usually improvises around them."

Her jaw dropped slightly. "He's improvising?"

Kurt shrugged. "Probably."

"Does he teach?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Kurt replied. "Why?"

"Because I would give my right arm to be able to do that. Well, maybe not my arm, that would be problematic in the long term. A kidney?"

"I don't know about that, but I'll ask." He shrugged, then grinned at her. "And possibly sexually blackmail and bribe, if necessary."

"Awesome!" She grinned, then stepped away. "I'll leave you to your song."

"You don't have to -"

"See you later!" She floated off, and Kurt turned his attention back to his boyfriend, who was singing to him again.

"S_he's in line at the dole with her head held high. _

_While I just lost my job but didn't lose my pride, _

_But we both know how, how we're gonna make it work when it hurts._

_When you pick yourself up you get kicked in the dirt._

_Trying to make it work but, man, these times are hard... _

_But we're gonna start by drinking old, cheap bottles of wine_

_Sit talking, up all night, _

_Doing things we haven't for a while, a while, yeah. _

_We're smiling but we're close to tears _

_Even after all these years _

_We just now got the feeling that we're meeting_

_For the first time."_

He was looking out to the audience again, repeating the chorus to Kurt as a reminder of the last month, of the last ten years, and what they'd have for the next ten. Kurt could taste it.

"_Drinking old cheap bottles of wine_

_Sit talking, up all night._

_Saying things we haven't for a while, a while yeah _

_We're smiling but we're close to tears _

_Even after all these years _

_We just now got the feeling that we're meeting _

_For the first time_

_For the first time _

_Yeah, for the first time _

_Oh, for the first time."_

It was amazing that they were still coming up with new firsts. Amazing, and wonderful, and totally them, and _oh god _Kurt was going to cry in public, and then he was going to have to kill Blaine, and that would be another first. And now their eyes were locked again and Kurt was melting into a puddle of fluffy goo on the floor. Blaine's voice could just do that. Maybe he'd sold his soul at some point?

"_Oh these times are hard._

_Yeah they're making us crazy,_

_Don't give up on me baby."_

Never, he thought.

"_Oh these times are hard. _

_Yeah they're making us crazy,_

_Don't give up on me baby. _

_Oh these times are hard _

_Yeah they're making us crazy, _

_Don't give up on me baby ..._

He brought his hands from the keys for the final time, seeming surprised to notice that everyone else was still there. He stood, waved his hand in acknowledgement, and left the stage, returning to Kurt and picking up the glass Amy had left for him. Kurt just blinked.

"So," he said, sitting, "did you like it?"

Kurt blinked some more. Blaine looked a little worried.

"Are you okay here? I knew it. I thought it was good for us, but -"

The rest of the sentence was muffled, on account of the fact that Kurt, still holding his own glass, had essentially affixed himself to his lips. When they pulled apart, after a short moment, Blaine smiled.

"I guess you did like it. Or, if you hated it, I should annoy you this much more often."

Kurt just raised his glass, and Blaine brought his to meet it immediately. "Us. Ten years, three cities, too much hair gel, and not one regret."

Blaine tried to stop himself from smirking. "Well, I kind of have one..."

Kurt gave him a look.

"...it took me way too long to tell you I loved you. I was scared." He paused a Kurt's smile, then thought. "And, now that you mention it, the tequila at Wes' graduation party. Also a mistake."

"You were really funny, though."

"I wouldn't remember, except it's all on youtube for everyone to re-watch at their convenience."

"Weren't we doing something before you decided to ruin the moment?"

"Oh, yeah." Neither of them had moved their glasses, and they weren't paying attention to whoever was onstage. Blaine leaned in further. "To those ten, and the next ten, and the ten after that, and every ten you'll give me."

Kurt clinked the glasses together, and went to take a sip. Blaine intertwined their arms and took a sip from his own glass.

"You are a walking, talking made-for-TV movie."

"You love me." A kiss to the cheek.

"Little bit, yeah... and Blaine?"

"Mmm?"

"They're yours. You can have all of them."

"...I'll hold you to that."

* * *

><p>"Hey, Kurt?"<p>

"Mmm?"

"Have you seen my blue NYU t-shirt anywhere?"

Kurt's eyes widened as he looked up from his laptop, and he flushed. "It's... I think it's at Mercedes' apartment."

Blaine raised an eyebrow from the door to their bedroom. "Since when has Mercedes taken to stealing my clothes?"

"She hasn't, to my knowledge. I... I must have left it there accidentally. When I was staying there."

Blaine's entire face softened and he joined Kurt on the couch. "You stole my shirt when you left?"

"No! Well... sort of. When she... when 'Cedes got me my clothes she accidentally picked it up -"

"Accidentally my ass. None of our friends do _anything _accidentally."

Kurt got quiet. "It smelled like you, so I... I kept it. I know I'm pathetic..."

He had closed his eyes in embarrassment, but opened them when he felt his boyfriend take his hand and press a lingering kiss to his knuckles. "That is such a relief"

"It's totally pathetic. Why would that be a relief?"

"Because I had almost all of your clothes here, so every time I went to go change I would have a total Brokeback moment."

Kurt couldn't help but laugh at the look on his face. "You wished you could quit me?"

Blaine smirked and leaned forward to kiss him on the nose. "Wasn't gonna happen."

Kurt didn't respond, because he was busy for a few minutes. Then: "Go run."

In an act of extreme maturity, his boyfriend stuck his tongue out at him. "Bossy..."

"If you don't go running, you don't come back from running, and then you don't have to take a shower..."

He stood up immediately. "I'll be back in half an hour." He appraised Kurt, who was lounging again, and reconsidered. "Possibly ten minutes."

He typed away. "Less talking means more running means more showering..."

"Try not to steal my clothes while I'm gone. I'll be back, I swear."

"Would you like to take a token of mine with you on your journey? A handkerchief, perhaps? I could spray it with my cologne."

"That would be nice."

"Go away, Blaine."

"Kiss?"

"Fine."

"Mmmm."

"Mmm...not done. More."

"You'll never be done."

"True."

"I'm going now."

"You do that."

"Kurt?"

"Mmm?"

"Love you."

"That's good... Hey, Blaine..."

"Yeah?"

"Love you too."

He grinned. "I know."

And they did.

~ Fin ~

* * *

><p><em>[AN to close: Thus ends _Silence, Schemes, and Potentially Shattered Dreams_. Thank you for the overwhelmingly positive response - this is a story that sort of captured me, and I'm so glad to know that some of you felt even a little of that. I hope each of you found something. I have to thank Kat (psychopiratess), my beta, again, for her support and encouragement, and for initiating the spark that led to the inclusion of Maroon 5, and one of my favorite songs._

_(Edit: Thank you to the anon sent me a link to Butch Walker's "Here Comes The..." (feat. Pink), saying it reminded you of the early tone of this story. It is linked in my profile, because it is perfect. I wish I'd had that while I was writing!)_

_I actually have more written in this 'verse, and, as tradition dictates, the next story may be wildly different in tone from this..._

_Thank you all so much.]_


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